Free it Up
I've been doing this for as long as I can remember and yet was only able to put it into words earlier this week. I told it to Joel through tears. I'm telling it to you because I think you might know what I'm talking about and it might free something up in you as it did for me.
I remember my childhood as a series of extreme peaks and troughs. When I came home from school mom would be present and moving around, on the couch exhausted or gone. Of the three, for the first years of her illness, and of my elementary school education, she was there more than she wasn't. As I moved up through the third grade ranks, she got worse. The worse she got the harder I tried at school. It was never enough to take home an A. I wanted an A plus. Plus is a word that you say with a smile on your face. A smile is built into it.
Eventually she spent more time on the blue velveteen couch in the living room. She watched a lot of Star Trek during the school day. I have no idea what else she did. I only know that when I came home if the house was clean she'd had a good day. If the house wasn't clean I better have an A plus.
I was in sixth grade, we were living on base, when I knew things were getting worse. My step-father mentioned finding a cheap plot for my mom. Trips to the hospital became more frequent. The house frequently went days without a good cleaning. But I still kept bringing home those A plusses.
The truth is, I remember precious little of my childhood before sixth grade. Occasionally my grandmother will try and plug memories into me: "Oh, remember that dress you wore when we visited you in Germany? That doll we brought?" No, I don't remember. I remember dark days. I remember the moment when denial bowed to acceptance.
But that's not really why I'm writing this. That's all back story. I told Joel earlier this week that for most people there is a silver lining on every cloud. For me, there is a cloud perched on every silver lining.
When the only thing I could be sure of was that mom was either going to be sick, or after sixth grade, dead, I started engineering my life with a built-in cloud. Stay with me here. I promise this will make sense to you.
I really do live an exceptional life. I'm aware of all the blessings, the goodness, the love and loving and passion and compassion. I have friendships that I've cherished for a decade now. My best friends are scattered all over the globe. I can catch a plane to visit my first business, in Japan. In October, I'll do just that. I'm lucky to call some beautiful, talented women my friends and business partners - and they live all over the States. You can look at my life, at these facts, and say: the woman has it all, she has nothing to complain about. I refrain from complaining. Instead, I make rain showers for myself.
I have carried this belief with me since I was very young. I engineer situations to be sad or painful because I believe that sadness and pain is inevitable. If everything is going well in a relationship, I pick a fight. It can be very confusing for the people that love me. It is said that the only thing constant is change. I think that the only thing we can believe in is that it's going to end.
The Dalai Lama has talked about the importance of reflecting on death regularly. I think about death daily. This isn't a morbid preoccupation or a freaky hang-up. If you have partied with me you know I'm as quick to jump on stage, grab the microphone at karaoke while simultaneously doing an Irish Car Bomb as I am to mull the deeper questions of life over an Americano with you. Death, I consciously reflect on it. I think it's healthy to keep in mind that our time is limited, our health precious, our intentions vital to shaping who it is we become. I really practice engaging to the max with each day.
But there's this undercurrent of sadness that I ride. I sometimes undermine my own best efforts - for instance, not finishing a project I've started - because that way I'm sure to know the outcome. I want to put a stamp of sadness on it and send it away without a return address. I don't know what to do with it if it's too happy. My wedding day was a cloud-shrouded affair, not the happiest day of my life (oh! there's a tired cliche. What about all the days that follow?) There is some deep root of sadness in my soul that I can't seem to pull, dig up or outgrow. I water it by acknowledgment. Sometimes I appreciate the shade it gives me. Still, I secretly wonder if it will envelop my whole heart someday, the way it enveloped my mom.
I met a fellow edge-dweller recently. He told me a story about a crush he had in junior high. He wrote the girl a note, asking her to be his friend. He carried it with him for weeks. He couldn't bring himself to give it to her. He re-wrote it. He told the story to me with sadness in his eyes. He never gave the girl the note. It took the curve of his right butt cheek and he wrote it again. Then one day he came to school to see she'd graffiti'd the side of the building with her message: All I wanted was one friend. What if he had had the courage to give it to her, he wondered to me. He knows there were deeper issues but what if he could have been that one friend?
We have to be that one friend to ourselves.
Still, I want to bring home A plusses to my mom. I want her squat down and look me in the eye. I want us to watch Star Trek together. I want to read books with her and feel her fingers on my face. I want to know that woman I lived inside for nine months when she was still a teenager.
I want the impossible. I want the silver lining without the cloud.
"Death is a part of all our lives. Whether we like it or not, it is bound to happen. Instead of avoiding thinking about it, it is better to understand its meaning. We all have the same body, the same human flesh, and therefore we will all die. There is a big difference, of course, between natural death and accidental death, but basically death will come sooner or late. If from the beginning your attitude is 'Yes, death is part of our lives', then it may be easier to face." - from The Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Reader Comments (13)
You are a moving writer, my dear. I know this is hard for you. And I'm
proud of you for facing it. I'm sorry for the pain you have felt these
many years, and I'm sorry for the fact that you have had to protect
yourself in this way. I am glad to be a part of your life now, and I
hope that we can walk the path of opening together. I believe that you
will trust life again. It will be difficult and hard, but you will.
And I look forward to walking beside you as you find that freedom. As
you make that freedom.
I am crazy about you, and so grateful to be a part of all of this. I
know it will be difficult for both of us, and I will have to be a
stronger man at times. But it will be for the best. We will grow
closer and as a team. What an amazingly beautiful thing. I truly look
forward to being a part of that with you.
Gwen, when I read your post I felt like I needed to click that link,...so I did. I reflect on death quite often myself. I've been this way for over a decade. It's become such a part of me that every time I see something new, I've already fastforwarded it to the end. I've tried to share this perspective with others, but I find that it sometimes comes across as negative. How can I tell them that it is an extreme awareness of death that heightens my sense of smell when I hold my daughter close? How do you explain that it is death that makes my son's hair softer beneath my hand as I rub his head while he's sleeping? I often want that silver lining without the cloud, but then I realize that it is the awareness of death that makes me who I am. What would I be like without it? I remember the moment that it changed and I know that I can't go back,...don't want to. I've lived like this too long now to change. Death reveals the beauty in the simple for me. Thank you so much for being so open and honest. I want you to know, human to human, that I understand this particular post...and it touched me. -Oran
I think that you are very courageous for writing this, Gwen. It can be soooo hard to talk about feelings and topics such as death, love, and all the other nitty-gritty stuff that goes along with it. I am really sorry that you missed out on having a healthy mom. That sucks. And anyone who tells you otherwise or tries to make you see a bright side to that is silly. Everyone wants their mom to be around. That's a simple fact of nature.
I can tell you that I look at your accomplishments and think "Wow! She must not be afraid of anything!" I mean, to move to Japan at a young age and then open a business there takes balls. After reading your post, I now realize that there are some things that can scare the hell out of you.... (and there should be. you're human).
As someone who just got out of the hospital and thought for a few days that I might not be getting better, I have a new appreciation for health, life, and all that good stuff. I promised myself that I would no longer let things stand in my way, that if I was afraid of something, I would have to do it, because if something happened again to my health, and I never got to do it, I would be really sad...
Here's to making the most of what you can, while you can. Here's to being that one friend. Here's to freeing it up. And here's to you, Gwen - and to your mom, for being brave, putting up the fight, and for somehow getting out of bed and dealing with life everyday, even when things seem impossible.
Well my dear, you are a silver lining to me. I'm incredibly sorry for the clouds. When I think about the strength that we contain...the pain that we carry...the hurt that we endure, I am amazed. Bits of flesh and all that.
Thank you for your courage, Gwen. Beautiful stuff.
I absolutely love you my dear. You are an absolutely amazing woman and to the people that know you, are an enormous blessing....
There is so much that resonated with me in this post. Though my mom is alive, there were definitely peaks and valleys, the desire for perfection, the need to please. And like you, there is a cloud on every silver lining. I so *get* that. I know that for me, while I'm happy and blessed beyond measure, I spend so much time waiting for death, for sadness, for the next shoe to drop. I am so sorry you have to experience such sadness, and such struggle, even in the midst of happiness and "good things." I really think you are a force---just this amazing person who inspires and encourages everywhere you go. This post was amazing. I just wish you the very best, Gwen.
I'll admit it, I love to cry sometimes - to allow myself to soften underneath all the layers of protection. Your post has given me that experience this morning and I want to thank you for that Gwen. This expression of your heart has touched me deeply. Since a dear friend died suddenly and violently several years ago, I have cultivated a habit of bringing death to mind in almost every moment of the day. Sometimes my mind is filled with frustration, confusion, or anger and part of me wishes that it could shed this habit, but in truth I know that it transforms my life in each moment that I allow it to. It has been a blessing to realize the gentle sweetness of sadness that is allowed to just be.
This resonated deeply with me. I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me tear up a bit. You're an amazing person and I'm glad to call you my friend and role model. Hearts.
There's something really powerful that opens up when we start to see the difference between our life and the story we tell ourselves about it. This is really good, Gwen.
We're only as sick as our secrets.
Thank God for AA slogans.
Honestly many times can make those dark clouds "right sized". Today, I am grateful for your willingness to click "post".
Know that in your deep root of sadness, you are not alone, Gwen. I think many of us engineer our own clouds as an inoculation against the greater pain of having terrible things happen to us when we least expect it, when we did nothing to deserve it, when we tried our hardest. We sabotage our happy moments in the belief that by doing so we'll shield ourselves against some inevitable Karmic pendulum that otherwise would swing back and hit us.
Although I agree with the Dalai Lama, I think the hardest part about death isn't accepting it but surviving it. Your struggle ultimately sounds like it is about LIFE: how do you live a life -- a happy life -- in which you have SO little control over whether you lose the people you love, or whether they will love you in a way that can sustain you?
This is raw stuff, Gwen. I applaud your bravery for unearthing it, much less onto the Internet. I think just speaking difficult things out loud can sometimes make them a little less scary. The fact that you can put it into words somehow makes it within your grasp.
I've been wanting to reply to this, but it's been hard to know what exactly to say other than I understand it. There's been a lot of death, tragedy, and disappointment in my life. I too seem to bake failure into things that I do. I never connected the two. My husband has always said that I have a 'fear of completion'. It's something that I've improved upon, but it's still there and it's still work. Your post has definitely given me something to think about. I wish you peace and grace in your journey.
I have read this every day since you posted it. It's so beautiful, so truthful, so open, and so real. I love it, and I love you. Thank you for your willingness to share yourself. It's such a blessing.