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.

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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. 

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He Remained a Gentleman to the End

I have tried to keep the darkness I am experiencing right now from becoming too raw and broken in my posts here and on Facebook and the variety of other places I write these days. It is difficult, as the times I write most freely about anything are ironically the times when I am struggling. I think it is my way of coping, some way of letting the pain find a window to escape through.

So tonight, I was searching through a poetry site I had never been to before. I love to search and find poetry that mirrors my journey or pain, and I am often astonished at how someone else's words seem to capture the struggle in my heart and mind. I came upon the following piece:

Drawing from Life

by Reginald Shepherd

Look: I am building absence
out of this room's air, I'm reading suppositions into
summer's script snarled on a varnished floor.
It looks like a man. That knot's his hand
waving good-bye, that stippled stripe of grain's
the stacked-up vertebrae of his turned back.
Small birds (sparrows or finches, or perhaps)
are cluttering the trees with blackened ornaments (burning
in the remnant light of August eight o'clock), and noises
I can't hear. Chirring there, chittering. The window's closed.

I am assembling a lack of sound
in this locked box, and dotting all the i's
these floating motes present (my composition), I am not lonely
for the palpable world (midges I dap hands for
and kill), shivering into darkness underwater outside glass:
what's left of light sinking from zero down to less,
cobalt down to zaffer, deeper to purple-black
where divers drown. The swimming landscape's
all mistake (one world that shuts air into
my submerged terrarium), and I am luck.

I was so taken with this piece, the flowing prose, the tangle of words I read and think I could never put together... I wanted to find more by this poet. I searched through the site and Google and found a few other beautiful pieces, and was so excited to be discovering a talent I didn't know about, and looking forward to reading more of his work as he wrote more to add to his already extensive library.

Then, I saw a link for his blog. I was so happy, as I looked forward to reading his thoughts on the craft, as well as just getting to know him better. I clicked on the link for his blog, and began to read the most recent entry. I literally gasped a little out loud.

I suppose I should have publicized these a bit earlier, but I don't always have it completely together lately. In any case, there have been a number of publications of Reginald's poetry and essays since his death last fall.

Since his death last fall. How? Why? As I read more, I found that the writer of the posts was Reginald's partner and love, Robert Philen. Reading Robert's entries, one can almost see him struggling with every word. It seems hard for him to write the word death. His pain is real. Reginald died after a battle with cancer. He was only six years older than I am now.

The blog contains more of Reginald's work, and he was astonishingly talented. I still marvel at his words and the way he turns an overflow of descriptives into something so simple and striking. Just beautiful. As I read more of his blog tonight, it was so sad to see his last entry, detailing his current hospital stay, and then two weeks later, a post from Robert about his death.

What a loss to not know years more of his work. But what a find tonight to be discovering him. I am off to read more. I realized that I can still go and learn about his thoughts on writing, and just learn more about him as a person. He has two years of blog entries left behind as a gift.

The title of this post is a quote from a nurse who cared for Reginald near the end of his battle with cancer. I thought it was such a beautiful thing to say.

I leave you with one more piece of his work, and below it, the link to his blog.

YOU, THEREFORE

For Robert Philen

You are like me, you will die too, but not today:

you, incommensurate, therefore the hours shine:

if I say to you “To you I say,” you have not been

set to music, or broadcast live on the ghost

radio, may never be an oil painting or

Old Master’s charcoal sketch:

you area concordance of person, number, voice,

and place, strawberries spread through your name

as if it were budding shrubs, how you remind me

of some spring, the waters as cool and clear

(late rain clings to your leaves, shaken by light wind),

which is where you occur in grassy moonlight:

and you are a lily, an aster, white trilliumor viburnum, by all rights mine, white star

in the meadow sky, the snow still arriving

from its earthwards journeys, here where there is

no snow (I dreamed the snow was you,when there was snow), you are my right,

have come to be my night (your body takes on

the dimensions of sleep, the shape of sleep

becomes you): and you fall from the sky

with several flowers, words spill from your mouth

in waves, your lips taste like the sea, salt-sweet (trees

and seas have flown away, I call it

loving you): home is nowhere, therefore you,

a kind of dwell and welcome, song after all,

and free of any eden we can name

To visit Reginald's blog, click here.

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Uncertainty

A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for.
John A. Shedd

The quote above was given to me by a former mentor of mine early in my career. It has always remained one of my favorite quotes, and an often needed reminder that life isn't about sitting still and being safe--it is for living--for doing whatever you are "built for"--or meant to do.

Beginning last August, I took what I thought were some fantastic, beautiful risks. I trusted my heart, believed in fate and love, and leaped...only to get so terribly deceived and hurt, that I doubted everything I knew about myself, life, and the whole business of that ship leaving the harbor.

Since then it seemed as if things kept happening-- my life has honestly seemed like a ride on a rickety roller coaster, with no assurances that the track was complete, or that I would survive the ride at all. Even if I did survive, I wondered if I had already lost so much of who I am, that I would be unrecognizable once the ride stopped...even to myself.

Even just within the last month, I have suffered so many setbacks and struggles that I have questioned everything--EVERYTHING. There have been days I haven't eaten because I literally had no money. My car was repossessed, and I am behind on my rent, waiting for my landlords, who have been so incredibly patient with me, to finally decide that they have had enough of my roller coaster ride.

I have had to decide just how much a person, an employer, an insurance company, or a nagging creditor can take away from you before you sink into something you can't crawl out of.

I have compared lives with countless people (which is something I always tell my friends NOT to do), telling myself that in the scheme of things, I had it much better than those battling cancer, the loss of a loved one, or those who had no home at all. But, in the end, your own pain and struggle are still as painful, still as horrible to you, no matter how much better off you are than anyone else.

I have wondered what my purpose in life really is, as I have watched things tumbling around me. I have examined every choice, mistake, success and failure. And the truth is, I have no answers.

In the last week, I was at a rock bottom, and by the end of the week, felt myself afloat again and turned around by the love and giving hearts of friends that are like family to me. It scares me more than I can write to think of where I would be without this nonjudgmental love, without their support and belief in me. Knowing I only have to make phone calls to two different houses and find my most ardent supporters at either number has literally saved me.

So, back to my quote, and why I started this post with it. The truth is, the ship isn't entirely, without a doubt, safe in that harbor. There is no safe place in life where we can corner ourselves and not take risks and guarantee all will be well.

All the more reason to pull out of that harbor, and keep moving...find your purpose. I don't have a clue what mine is yet. And as scared as I am of what has happened recently, I am still out to find it.

Tomorrow is the first step.

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