Into the Night

When I was in college, when I found life too challenging, and I felt too overwhelmed to face and handle everything coming at me, I often did something that the adult me now knows wasn’t exactly safe. I would often, usually in tears and exasperated, in the wee hours of the night, grab my keys and head to my car. I didn’t have a planned destination, a map, a route, or anything other than my pain as my guide. Very often the gas tank wasn’t full, but I took my chances, driving into the night, the windows down, my radio blaring, and tears flowing.

It all sounds melodramatic. It wasn’t done for dramatic effect. This was before the days of cell phones and selfies. No one knew my whereabouts. I definitely felt I was running away, or rather, trying to out run everything. Pain, depression, loss, my family, my own failures, the very life I was leading. Sometimes I dreamed of just driving and driving until I ended up in a new, unknown town-- leaving everything behind and starting over. 

In my heart, I knew it wouldn’t all work out as easily as all that. I couldn’t ignore all that was behind me—college courses, work, bills—it would all still be there even if I took up residence in some other zip code.

Ultimately, and usually depending on the amount of gas in my tank, I would decide it was time to turn back around. I would drive slower on the way home, letting the cool air dry my tears, trying to breathe in slowly and take in the night’s movement, the weird, lonely pace around me. I would finally make it back home, exhausted, spent, and fall into bed.

I can often remember dropping my keys on my nightstand and laying down and just hoping beyond hope that I would make it to a time in my life where I never felt this way again. Where I felt settled, safe, and happy. Where I didn’t need to run or out run anything.

The funny thing is, for so long, I thought I had. Then, over the last five years, even in the best of times, there are moments where I would think about those midnight drives in college and feel that tug. Sometimes it was because of work stress or life stress. Sometimes it just felt like I was lost and needed to go looking for something…myself maybe?

Recently, especially, there have been nights where I try and go to sleep and my mind won’t stop racing, won’t stop fretting, thinking, turning over every little thing. Sometimes it’s after a bad day, sometimes I am worried about our bank account or my career, but some nights I just get myself into a spiral of thinking that is beyond anything I could possibly catch up with by pacing or normal worry. I start to wonder if I will ever really finish my book—the dream I have wanted forever—to be published. Then I wonder what I am doing with my life. I feel so far away from the core of who I am and who I want to be. I start feeling like I am paying the bills and losing pieces of my soul more every day. I try and remind myself that we all have to work, that everyone feels this way, but I feel a clock start ticking so loudly that I mentally start searching for my keys. I want to jump out of bed, into my car, and drive quickly into the inky dark night. I want to roll down the windows and feel the night air. I want to drive until I can smell the Pacific and hear the waves and see the moon reflecting in my windshield. I want to drive and drive and drive until the sun rises in a new place altogether.

It won’t solve anything. I will end up right back here. This isn’t a bad place to be. Everything and everyone I love is here. I just wish I was sure about the choices I make every day. 

I have said so many times that I don’t have regrets—that however I ended up where I am, I have made peace with. As long as I ended up here, I am fine. That is not all completely true. I am thrilled with where I ended up—and I believe this was fate—and exactly where I am meant to be. But I do have regrets. And a part of me believes that I would have ended up here (since this is my fate), even if I had made different choices, and maybe after not having gone through such a painful journey.

At one particularly low point over 10 years ago, after our company had just gone through a series of layoffs, I found myself unemployed and unsure of my next steps. I had just enough money in the bank to survive another few months or so where I was, or, I thought, take a leap. I seriously considered buying a plane ticket to Paris, landing, and figuring out the rest from there. I was going to leave everything—my apartment, my belongings, my life—everything behind. I couldn’t decide if the plan was brave or stupid. Now, looking back, I know that it probably would have been disastrous. I was depressed at the time (never a good time to make decisions) and I didn’t have nearly enough money to take a chance like that. I had nothing that even resembled a plan B, and the list goes on. I know all of that. But there is a huge part of me that wishes, very deeply, that I had bought that ticket.

I think my late night obsessive thinking and worrying sessions are a bit of a mini-mid-life crisis. I am just realizing that there is so much I want to do, and I am not making progress on a lot of the things that matter to me. I look at my life five years down the line, and I am so afraid I will still be in this same place. I worry about the person I am, the wife I am, the human being I am. I want so much to do more, to give more, to be more. I worry.

Back in college, on those midnight drives, I was truly trying to run away, out run things, drive towards another place. Part of me wonders now, if when I am dreaming of grabbing my keys and driving, if I am not trying to go back, take the wheel from that younger me. I want to take control, change the course, lead her in a different direction. 

I want to tell her: We will end up here, in the same spot, I promise. The way we get there will just be far less rough, dangerous, and painful.

I can’t go back, I know. I can only worry about the road I have left-- it stretches out before me. I can chart the course from here. I have to remember that, when I am laying here worrying. My hands are on the wheel. I can only plan so much. I can only worry so much. For now, I will sleep, and try and reassure myself. At the end of the day, I will end up back here, right where I am supposed to be, with everyone and everything I love. 

Oh, and to that younger me, so sad, driving in the night, I also want to say, No matter the path we took to get here…we made it. Somehow, we made it.

The beautiful photograph at the end of my blog post is entitled "Time Reverse" and is by Amy M of TruBlissPhotography. Check out more of her amazing work here.

Read more...

Here Before

Usually when I am at some sort of crossroads, when I am struggling or hurting, the words are everywhere. I can write and write, no matter how tired or busy or how little time I have. But, that hasn’t been the case for the last four months. It has been almost physically painful to write, and I haven't been able to find my way out of whatever writer's block or obstacle I am up against. I have worried that I am too far gone this time. But really, I can’t be any more far gone than I have been before, can I? There are too many good things in my life now that I never thought I would have. Too many right things. Too many things that should make everything easier.

This time of year always sneaks up on me. Even though fall is my favorite season, this time of year – heading into the holidays, has always been hard. Even though I have a husband who loves Christmas with such passion that he reverts back to a six year old’s excitement over every ornament, decoration and Christmas movie on television, it can’t erase over 30 years of this being a really horrible time of year for me. I honestly love this time now, as we have our own traditions, and I don’t have to make excuses to avoid going home (and feel guilty for it) or feel like the most single person in the world (as the holidays can really make you feel). But I think there is something to the fact that my body, soul, and spirit learned to start preparing for hard times around September, and somehow I haven’t “unlearned” that yet. I get more emotional over everything, and think too much about everything, and in general, feel a little more of the weight of the world on me.

It started in September, when everything I read and heard on the news and from my friends just started weighing on me. Just the unfairness of life. Just hard stories and hard times and sadness that seemed to be outnumbering the goodness and kindness in the world. I kept telling myself I was just seeing things that way, and I was honestly getting scared for myself. We have been under so much financial stress for such a long time it seems. That will wear on a person. That, and family stress and every day stress, and just life has seemed, well, so heavy. I worried that, like addiction and other life-long battles people have to fight even once they are recovered, my depression was always going to be something that I had to keenly be aware of, sitting in the corner beckoning for me when I feel this way. At times, it felt as if I was fighting not to be taken in. I think we all have low moments, and I know I have had enough on me to justify feeling overwhelmed.

A few key moments stopped me in my tracks. The first was on the drive into work a month or so ago. I was already emotional that morning, and traffic was backed up on my regular route, and I had to take some back roads as I neared my office. I got a little turned around, as I always do with my lack of direction, and as I pulled up to a stop sign, trying to figure out which way to turn, a homeless man sat on a tiny patch of pavement between me and the oncoming lane of traffic. He held a small cardboard sign, with messy letters in black magic marker that read: Dreaming of Tacos and a Clean Pair of Socks. He was looking off in the distance and the pain on his face and that sign…well, I lost it. I was sobbing in my car, soon serenaded by multiple car horns pleading with me to move on. It just broke my heart that someone wanted such simple things and didn’t have them. The next morning, I tucked a pair of my husband’s socks into my purse, and went the same route to the office, but the man was no longer there. I cried again. I see so many homeless people here. Every day. And my heart is torn every time, and especially when I see elderly people or when I know someone is mentally ill and lost in a world that has discarded them. But this man’s simple sign has stayed with me. I have tried to remember that and be so thankful for all that I have. I have punished myself for feeling down when I am NOT by the side of the road begging, and I will sleep in a warm bed and have food tonight.

The other key moment came just a week ago. I was at work, and got a call on my cell phone from a sales person, trying to sell a conference sponsorship. She was trying to reach me, but in connection with the company I last worked for. When I explained that I no longer worked there, she responded, “Oh, Kim, I hope you are doing something  you love to do, something you’ve always dreamed of doing.” I sat silent. She and I had worked together briefly at my last company, and she let me know she had enjoyed working with me so much, and was glad to see I had moved on (my last working environment was not a very positive place to work). And while my new job is much better, much more geared to my work strengths, and while I make a good salary, what she said made my stomach drop. It was such hard timing when I have been struggling to write a single sentence for months and at times have given up on my dream of ever publishing a book. I want so badly to finish my novel and just try to get it published, and to just really feel that first and foremost, I am a writer. I know that can’t happen all at once, but I have always felt I was working my way there. Lately, I have felt like it just isn’t going to happen, like I am losing something, a part of me, a key core of who I am. I know I am so lucky to have a job in a time when people don’t. I know we are lucky to be paying our bills when others can’t. It is just so frustrating to be working so hard and turning over what feels like every cent to just cover our asses—barely—and it’s not even doing what I love- what I really want to do. But, that’s life. I know it. This is no surprise. It is just harder right now for some reason.

I feel time ticking by right now, it feels like the clock is speeding up. I had to check my age on a form recently, and I have a birthday coming up in a few short weeks. I will be 44. FORTY FOUR. How in the hell did that happen? And how did I LET that happen, without going after some of these dreams sooner? How did I let depression rob me of so many years? I know I didn’t “let” that happen, and that second question kind of answers the first, but it hurts my heart all the same. I know I still have time. I am constantly telling people that it is never too late. And it isn’t. It just feels that way right now. I just want to make up for lost time, and go grab everything I want to do, and do anything and everything that makes me feel better, and worthy, and hopeful about the world, and most of all, myself.

One thing that helps, so much, is this. 

This is the end of my day every day. My dog Bear. This face in the window. There are no questions or worries here from this sweet boy, just love. It amazes both me and my husband just how much love you can feel for a dog and how loved you feel in return. On my way home from work, when I honestly have cried a few tears for reasons I can’t explain, when I need to feel needed and worth more, and need to know that I am making my mark and a difference in the world somehow, I pull into my driveway, and Bear somehow knew five minutes before that I was turning on our street, even though I never arrive home at the same exact time. He looks out the window and waits. He sees me walking up to the door and explodes into a happy dance and pulls to get to me so much that my husband cannot hold him back until I have put my bags and purse on the kitchen table to turn to him. There is such joy in me just being there, just arriving, after only hours away. It seems small, and maybe even silly to those of you who aren’t dog lovers, but I can tell you that there are days when that moment is everything. 

It's a small sign that in a world of weight and sadness and lost and forgotten dreams, that there is boundless love waiting for me, just behind my front door, and somehow, I am doing something right.

 The beautiful painting featured in this post is called "The Fisherman's Wife" by Scott McLachlan. More of his work can be viewed here.

---

Read more...

Be Ready as Best you Can

As I watch my Facebook feed fill with pictures of my friends’ kids, almost grown up in their caps and gowns preparing for high school or college graduation, I am always taken back to those times in my life. There you are, right on the cusp of the beginnings of your life, or what you think your life will be.

This year was different for me, because while hearkening back to those times, I am also finding myself in this frustrating point of life where I just get angry because life seems so unfair. It is unfair to watch good people suffer with disease or horrible pain or loss—sometimes one after the other, while truly awful people, people I know to be manipulative and malicious, just skate through life, seemingly without a care. It’s not like I just learned this, there have been instances my whole life. But lately, so many people I know and care about are struggling, and I want to make sense of it all.

The thing is I can’t. You can’t. We just can’t. It is life. Life is fragile, hard, and yes also beautiful and precious, but the truth is, it isn’t always fair. It won’t ever be.

I have written a time or two before about commencement speeches that have touched me or meant something to me. A few years ago, I wrote a poem that makes me believe I was having similar feelings when I wrote then, also.

Today I decided to write my own commencement speech, even though I have not currently received an invitation from a university to give one, and I doubt any are forthcoming. It’s the best way I knew to combine my own nostalgia for this time, along with the wisdom I hope I am gaining with another year behind me.

So here it is, Entitled:

Be Ready as Best you Can

Life is not fair.

I don’t say this to discourage you. I say this to you as a challenge for this next stage of your life, as you sit in these seats in caps and gowns, excited about the next chapter.

Be excited. Do whatever it is that calls to you in the small hours of your life, in between the things you think you have to do. Make the thing that calls to you the “have to” of your life. If you don’t, you will always wonder, you will always wish, and when you find yourself older and wiser, you will know it is what you should have done. Many years ago. The good news? It’s never too late. But don’t wait.

Because, I will say it again, life is not fair. None of us is guaranteed another day, another hour. Whether you are religious or not, whether you fear death or not, whatever you believe, all of us are on borrowed time.

As I stand before you, I am farther along this path of life than you. Your path may be remarkably different than mine. You might get lucky. Everything might go just as you planned. But then again, it might not. Be ready for this, as best you can. Know that you might not get your dream job, but the one you get may be where you were destined to be. You might not get married as soon as you would like, but you may find that the wait was worth it after all. These sad, perplexing moments will be the threads of your life that weave together a pattern you couldn’t have foreseen. And at some point, you will be grateful for that. You will surprise yourself and be grateful that it wasn’t all so easy.

Know this: absolutely no one I know-- friend, acquaintance, co-worker,  or family member has ever said to me: things in my life went just as I planned. Anyone that does say that is probably not being honest with you or themselves. Everything will not go as you plan.

Be ready as best you can.

Let yourself mourn the losses of your life however you need to. It will make the victories that much sweeter.

Know that life and people will break your heart more than once in your lifetime. In fact, many times. Each time, you will feel that you can’t survive the pain. But you will. It will change you a little each time and teach you things you wish you didn’t have to learn in such a painful way. You won’t be able to see things clearly until much later when you look back and know that coming out on the other side of heartbreak made you stronger.

Take every chance you can. Don’t hold back. Because what will holding back get you? There won’t be photographs of you holding back, or friends sitting together laughing, remembering when you held back. There will be memories and mementos and stories handed down of all the chances you did take, the things you tried that scared you, that excited you, that made a dream come true, that ultimately will make you who you are.

There will be an a-ha moment when you finally become who you were meant to be. I can promise you, it is not right now. You may be far away from that moment, or you may be closer than some, but you will know it when it happens. When you have hurt enough, laughed enough, cried enough, experienced enough, and learned enough, you will have a moment where you sigh, take a deep breath, and know that this is it. Who you were meant to be. It won’t be an ending, it will be a beginning. You will relax a little more, quit trying so hard, and appreciate things more. It will hit you how precious it all is, and how hard you fought to get where you are, wherever that may be.

Be ready as best you can.

Everything is harder than it looks. Work, marriage, parenthood, and balancing more than one of these things at any stage in life- it’s all so much harder than you can imagine right now. But, it’s been said before, the best things in life are hard. And these things, the paycheck, the spouse, the children, they will also make up the most amazing, fulfilling, life-affirming moments. These moments will be more beautiful than you can imagine-- they will take your breath away.

I know now more than ever, that life is not fair. I watch friends struggle with disease, threatening to rob them from their young children, and I can’t make sense of anything. Years ago, I watched my best friend suffer as her three year old was diagnosed with leukemia. You cannot find any kind of fairness standing in a pediatric cancer ward. All you know is life is fragile, precious, and at times, so unfair. My friend’s son is healthy today. He is whole and healed. These moments will happen too—when you weep through laughter over amazing things, miracles, it seems. Hold onto those moments. They are rare, few, and far between.

So tonight, when you watch the last of the day fade away- your graduation day- take this with you: life is not fair. So, there’s absolutely no reason that you shouldn’t do everything you want, be everything you want to be. You have no excuses. If life were fair, it would all be spelled out for you, which steps to take, what not to do. If life were fair, you would know all the hours and days you have left, and there would be plenty, so why rush—why take a chance? If life were fair, it would be easy, lovely, and effortless.

But it’s not, thank goodness. It’s an unpredictable roller coaster ride, and you can’t ever see what’s coming next. You have no warnings, no guarantees, no map to follow from one stage to the next. Open your eyes, hold on, and be ready for all the surprises, catastrophes, and overflowing happiness. It’s all coming.

It will be wonderful, sad, and achingly beautiful.

Be ready as best you can.

Read more...

Searching for Sea Glass

Last year on this date, my husband Shea and I were a week away from setting off on our big adventure-- moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. I wrote about all the hope and possibility that lay ahead of us, and how excited we both were about the future. We were both nervous—Shea even more than I—as he had never been where we were going. I had lived here before, in the very town we were moving to. Our townhouse actually sits less than a mile from my former apartment, the little one bedroom I lived in –fifteen years ago- which seems unbelievably long ago now. Time has flown. This past year has flown. 

What we didn’t know was that once we left South Carolina, once we headed out for our adventure, everything would go wrong. I can’t even begin to explain or remember all of the little things that went awry, but the big things are burned into my memory: our corrupt moving company holding our belongings for ransom, finally giving them up only after an emotional battle and thousands more dollars of money that we had to borrow, finding out that the same moving company had kept many of our belongings including our mattresses, which left us struggling in our first weeks here on an air mattress until my first paycheck.

Then, while I was gone on my first business trip, Bear encountered a foxtail – something we knew nothing about- but once he inhaled it- cost us almost $1000 in an emergency veterinarian bill. (goodbye to the rest of the first paycheck!) Those first few weeks were horrendous, and Shea had to deal with a great deal of it alone, in a new city where he knew no one, while I was a few states away, working. Then, to top it all off, while I was on that trip, I took a tumble down a small flight of stairs, luckily breaking nothing, but the fall left me in such pain for the rest of my business trip, that I spent part of every day in the restroom in tears, and cried myself to sleep every night. This was contract work, and I refused to go to the ER because I knew no doctor would let me continue to work, and our financial situation was so perilous at that moment that I couldn’t risk being sent home. I waited to visit the ER after my trip once I got home, and came out hobbling on crutches, but relieved I had made it through and gotten paid. 

I kept waiting for the moment when we would turn the curve and our fortunes would change. I kept waiting to see the light in Shea’s eyes and know that he loved it out here as much as I always have. I kept waiting for him to find his next career direction and see the light at the end of the tunnel he has been waiting for. I kept waiting for my job situation to settle down and for me to feel I was really where I was supposed to be. The contract work dried up, and I finally found a full time position. But for the most part, for most of these things, I am still waiting. 

I have had more than a few challenging times in my life, so I know this is not the lowest point. There have been days in this last year, though, when things have felt bigger than me, bigger than us, and I have lost faith in myself. I have doubted the decision to bring us out here. Even though it was both of us deciding, it was me who started this chain of events, it was me who suggested bringing us here—all the way to the other side of the country. We both loved living in Myrtle Beach, SC, a place that held a lot of childhood nostalgia for us, and where the people that are truly family to us live. I cannot express how much we miss Aunt Marlene. We would be in her kitchen celebrating Easter with her and other family members tomorrow, and not doing that will be a hole in our hearts. I had assumed that by this time, we would be able to afford to fly back for holidays, and we are just not at that point yet. 

The truth is, we were struggling back in SC, and we are better off financially here, even if we are still struggling. It’s hard to face that, especially for Shea, who doesn’t know anyone else here, and I know he feels so disconnected from the world at times. Changing careers is so hard, and navigating through that has been more challenging than he or I could have ever imagined. 

I have wanted to write for months, to spill my soul out and share what has been going on in my mind and heart, but I haven’t been able to find the words. Working has left me drained and while I am so thankful for my job, especially now, I come home exhausted and unable to summon the creative energy to do the thing I love and honestly need to do most when I am trying to work through a hard time. I know creative people all struggle with this. We have to pay the bills, so your art-- whether it’s writing, painting, music—it becomes the thing you do on the side unless you have been lucky enough to find away to make it your livelihood. 

On the train ride home, standing in the middle of dozens of people every day, I find myself getting emotional thinking of all the time ticking away. I am not writing my novel, I haven’t even written a blog post in months. It has been overwhelming lately. I tell myself I will make the time, I will stay up late, I will carve out time on the weekends. But I can’t summon the words at exact moments. They come to me or they don’t. Lately, they haven’t. 

I wish I could say I see all these hopeful changes just around the corner for us, and that within a few weeks, we will be out of this rut, full of purpose, and without any doubts of our choices and our place in the scheme of things. I know that won’t be true- unless a winning lottery ticket finds its way to us. 

I have to keep myself focused on what we do have. I tell myself all the time that it’s like being at the beach, looking for sea glass among the broken shells. You have to look really hard to find these beautiful, cloudy blue-green pieces of glass, little gems among the wreckage of the ocean, but they are there. Right now, my pieces of sea glass are that we both have health insurance, we are both ok health-wise, Bear is healthy and happy and loves it here- as do all of the animals, we live in a great place near beautiful walking trails, I am working full time, and we can pay the bills- barely- but we can. Tomorrow and the next day and the next, we will have plenty to eat, and we have a roof over our heads. We have each other. And although things have been rough and we have struggled at times, we know and love each other more every day. Some days are harder than others. Some days are good. We laugh, a lot. 

It has become this weird little mantra for me when I am having a bad day…look for the sea glass…a way to remind myself to look for the positive things. I don’t even know if the analogy makes sense to anyone but me. 

Sometimes the pieces of sea glass are really hard to see. Tomorrow, I am promising myself I will take a few extra moments to look harder to see them, to wait for the sun to catch the colors and show them to me. I know they are there, hidden among the broken shells of my life right now. 

Here's hoping in a few months, it's not as much of a struggle to find them. 

Read more...

Places We Have Lived

I lived on my own for the first time during my freshman year in college, occupying a two bedroom apartment  in a not-so-great area of town near campus. (I have huge regrets about not living in the dorm that first year, but that’s for another post). I was so ready to start my life away from my parents, away from my father, away from my past struggles, away from the things that I felt defined me. I had no idea that so much more was ahead of me that I was not equipped to deal with. The shaky foundation of my family proved to be poor preparation for the next stage of my life. I had no idea.

Everything I saw ahead of me for college and especially that first year fell apart within the first semester. I was already dating the man I was certain I was going to marry, that I had met just before the end of my senior year in high school. He was also my first love, my first real relationship. It was innocent and burdened-- lovely and flawed. Looking back, we never stood a chance because I had no idea who I really was or why I had so little faith in myself. I had not yet begun to define or heal the wounds that were taking a little more of my happiness every day. I had planned on a lifetime with him. We didn’t make it to Christmas.

Having been an honors student in high school, I thought I would repeat that success in college. I never worried about my academic abilities, and had no idea how emotionally trying it would be to sit in a huge lecture hall of hundreds of students I didn’t know, trying to figure out where I fit in and why nothing seemed to make sense. The weight of it all was smothering me. Nothing I thought I could depend on was lasting or working out. It all fell apart so fast.

I wasn’t equipped to deal with such independent choices, a serious relationship, or living on my own, and I certainly wasn’t equipped to deal with losing it all in a matter of months. All the things I had looked forward to, the things I had banked on that were my light at the end of the tunnel, were mirages. At the beginning of my life as I saw it, I had lost everything.

The worst part was that people judged me so harshly. I was viewed as this unstable girl who fell apart after her boyfriend left her. In part, that was true. It became a joke in the circles I had traveled in, my classmates. I was laughable, ridiculous. I will never, ever forget how that felt. I was so confused and felt so alone. The words others said, many of them people that I had come to regard as close friends, still ring in my ears at times of doubt, this many years away from all of that.

I am sure it was a foreign thing as a young person who had grown up in a stable, supportive family to watch someone like me disintegrate…or worse, seem fine one day and a wreck the next. We were so young. No one is supposed to be wise and enveloped in the capability to see the big picture and the real reason behind such things. I know all of that now, but it still hurt and took me so long to understand. I had a few close friends during college, one I had known in high school, another I made during my freshman year that were the exceptions and somehow had that wisdom. I am forever in their debt for the support they gave me during that first year and the years after at that time in my life.

When I go back in time in my mind, or when I reread a journal page as I am rearranging a bookcase, in the same way a song or a scent can transport me back to a singular moment…the place I lived during that first year in college is as clear to me as the four walls I am looking at now. I can see the marked, scuffed wooden floors, the metal blinds that made constant noise when I had the windows open, the bathroom with the black and white checked tile that crawled up the walls, the two small steps that led into the kitchen from the backdoor that I must have walked up and down a thousand times. The pink phone that hung on the wall in the hallway, and the countless nights I sat in the floor just below it, twirling the cord in my fingers, talking to close friends that I missed desperately who were far away at other campuses. The pieces of furniture that a teacher and friend gave me to help me make my start in the world. The way the sheer curtains in my bedroom blew in the breeze at night and floated above me as I laid awake.

I cannot believe the perfect still pictures I have in my mind of that little apartment that was nothing extraordinary, except that it was a beginning for me, and a place that honestly, to this day, brings a physical pain when I think back.

I started a tradition then, quite by accident. When I was moving out of that apartment once my lease was up, I had just finished putting the last small items in my car. I had cleaned and scrubbed and was taking one last walk through to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten any detail or left anything behind. I remember it was getting dark and I just kind of froze. I remembered that a year before, I had walked through this empty apartment in such a different place in my life. I was full of hope, so ready for the next chapter. I was so excited about every doorknob and window screen because they were mine. Now, as I stood in the hallway, I started to cry, to really weep, over all that I had lost. Over all that had transpired in one year of my life. I lingered in every room and made a note to remember all the happy things, the first moments of the life I had imagined, the despair I felt and the tears I cried in those rooms. It was such a huge thing for me to lose that first relationship, and I said goodbye to more than just a rented apartment, I said goodbye to a huge part of my innocence and hope.

I stood in my bedroom, next to shadowy marks on the floor left behind by my brass bed. I said one simple last goodbye, walked out the door, turned the key for the last time and took a deep breath. I made a decision right then to try and leave all that sadness locked in that place. To let it stay there and somehow suffocate in the tightly closed rooms, with nowhere to escape. It was silly and dramatic, but it helped that young, lost woman that I was put one painful chapter behind her.

Without ever planning it, I followed that same ritual everywhere I lived after that. After everything was cleaned and packed, when the sound of my footsteps echoed in empty rooms, I would take that final walk through and really remember everything- the good, the bad, the minutes and moments—all of it. I would do my best to say—That was me—here. That’s done. Onto the next place in my life.

The only place I didn’t do that was my childhood home. I was so ready to fly away when I left—and there was plenty to want to fly away from. Maybe it was because I knew I could come back to that house from time to time, but even when my parents announced they were selling the house and moving to another state, I had no desire to go and say goodbye. Maybe that was a mistake, because there are things that I still haven’t made peace with. Maybe I needed to shut it all away in the rooms of that house like I did the other places I lived later in life.

Today, a picture caught my attention on Pinterest, and I clicked through to find the story of this piece of a house in the middle of a field that had intrigued me. A woman had mourned the necessary loss of her childhood home, and all the dreams she had tied to it. The house, along with other buildings on the farm, had to be burned down for safety issues after years of deterioration. In the ashes, she remembered how she, as a child, was certain she would return to this house to raise her own children. Her memories moved her to erect a monument of sorts in the same spot where the house once stood. I so connected with her relationship to a place, a home, and the hope that grew inside it. 

We all walk through the rooms of the places we have lived in one way or another I guess. The places we have lived become a part of who we are, what we were, and what we remember. 

As I sit here tonight in a home that I know is filled with love, I have found the hope I had when I first walked through the halls of that tiny apartment in North Carolina in 1988. I could have never known how many years it would take to get back to that place of hope. Every place I have lived, every address change, every risk, heartbreak, and choice has led me here. 

I am finally home.

Please visit the site for "If We Lived Here" and Paula Rebsom’s work by clicking the photo below, which inspired this blog post.

Read more...