Our current state is not our constant state. - March 2014

I ran errands this morning, and my satellite radio was on Pop2K, which is the music of my twenties. (Sidebar: Good job by Nelly for making millions of dollars off of a song with the opening lines “I’m a sucker for corn rows and manicured toes”…wow). As I was driving around under grey skies, the music ushered in nostalgia that I did not anticipate when I woke up today. Gloomy Sundays tend to make me melancholy—not in the Hungarian Suicide song way—but in the sad, pensive way. I suppose overcast weather has a negative effect on many people after awhile, but for me it is always immediate and it is always a forlorn and sorrowful feeling. So, I drove. I listened. I grinned. I got slightly teary-eyed. I grinned some more. I came home.

The power of music never ceases to amaze me. Songs can transform moods and attitudes, invoke memories that you had forgotten existed,and stir a full spectrum of emotions within. What made it so interesting today is that this was pop/top 40 radio, which is not really my go-to. Sure, I have always listened to it and know every word of practically all popular music that’s been made in my lifetime (and before, even). However, I don’t associate specific memories with those songs. When I hear them, I sing along and my mind never drifts to another time or place. Today was different. I got all weird and emotional.

I decided lying quietly on watching The Cosby Show would be a good way to spend the afternoon, but when I hit the Guide button, I saw a Brandi Carlile at Red Rocks concert. I went on a pretty incredible road trip to see BC at Red Rocks when I was maybe 27, so I started thinking about it again.I came upstairs to search the computer for photos and because my photographs folders are a hot mess (shocking, right?), I ended up sifting through literally thousands and thousands of pictures from the past 10 years or so. I found the photos I was searching for relatively quickly, but then I just kept looking.

Technology is a blessing and a curse in this aspect. I think it’s a shame that looking through stacks and stacks of photo albums with yellowing pages and tacky floral covers is a thing of the past. But I appreciate digital photography in that it is easy to take 300 photos in a day.You’re bound to get at least one or two good shots that way. Unlike most people, though, I don’t delete the bad ones. When we were taking pictures on 110 film with those long skinny cameras, you got what you got. I don’t erase the blurry photos or the ugly faces because I want to remember that, too. And you can catalog all these things on your hard drive or in a cloud someplace and instantly find them—also a blessing and a curse, at least for me. I’m not sure that I should have sat here for hours today watching the years go by,especially considering the roller coaster they were.

My twenties seem like a yesterday or a lifetime ago,depending on the situation. When I began that particular decade, I was still sort of reeling from the secrets, tragedies and traumas from my teen years, and there were many. I know that I started my twenties very damaged. I was all cried out from all the crummy things that had happened in my life up to that point,so I just moved on and left them largely undealt with. In hindsight, this was probably not a good idea, and one for which I am still paying for today with the added bonus of all the things that happened in my twenties (hooray for therapy and medication!!).

To start that decade, I flunked out of college. I followed that up with some interesting relationships and job experiences. I lost family and friends, which is not a thing you think will happen when you’re really young, but people have a way of surprising you. Eventually, I found what, at the time, was a pretty stable situation. I then worked furiously to get the mental and financial stability to go back to school, which I did. I was diagnosed with cancer my junior year right about the time a hurricane ripped the roof off of my house and literally ruined everything. I managed to stay in school that semester and make the Dean’s List regardless (my mom loved that...she would hang those letters on the refrigerator). I graduated, got a real job, saw the demise of the family I had built for myself and the stability I thought was going to be lifelong. I flunked out of grad school, had some more interesting relationship and job experiences (man, that WO-S job was the best for stories when I actually do write a memoir one day). My mom and I became friends, which was not a thing I ever thought would happen because—and this is an assumption,albeit probably accurate—she spent a lot of time and energy upset about the fact that I was not married with children (not that I could have kids after cancer anyhow). The friendship with my mom was absolutely what I was lacking for all those years. Then, she found out she had cancer and very quickly died.Not long after, my twenties ended.

I don’t remember crying very much in my twenties. People who have met me in the last couple of years joke (but seriously, though) about my constant crying and emotional meltdowns. It makes me laugh to think about how many years when by where I literally just never reacted to anything. Now I’m openly weeping at Subaru commercials. I would say that has everything to do with many years worth of crazy things catching up with me, and maybe a little to do with overthinking everything ever and convincing myself I still haven’t got it right. I guess I just didn’t expect to be where I am in life right now.

Today, I looked through photos of people who I haven’t seen in years, but who were family. I wouldn’t want any of my actual relatives to take offense to this (assuming any are reading and care), but I don’t believe for one second that “blood is thicker than water.” I am a firm believer that family is what you create for yourself. I am lucky to have relatives who still associate with me (few as they may be), but I have also been very blessed in having created family for myself. But, like so many other people/places/things, I don’t see them anymore either. To look at years’ worth of holidays, parties, dinner,vacation, etc., with these people and know that I will never have those experiences again (or probably even see them) is strange. I looked at photos of my mother laughing, and it shocks me still to think I will never hear it again.

What really threw me for a loop is the fact that this isn’t a thing I think about very often (with the exception of my mom). I very rarely think about any of those people or things or places from my twenties, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s normal or really terrible. My mom used to say I just shut things out and how awful that was. She might be right. What I know as someone in my thirties is that I would never have guessed I would be at this place now. I know that’s an ambiguous statement, but it has to be to cover everything I did not expect…home, job, relationships, family, etc. I suppose I just thought I would have it together by now—a life built and a plan for the rest of it, but I’m not sure that I do. Everyone and everything I thought I would have, I don’t. I’m not sure that it’s a bad thing, necessarily. It was just eye-opening today to look at a life that seem so long ago, it’s not even a thing I remember having. But it gave a hell of a tug to the heartstrings today to say the least.

I’m going to say that Rose Kennedy absolutely nailed it when she said: “It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind,protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” I think I probably still have some pretty gaping wounds, but I haven’t turned out so bad. Today has been a good reminder that you cannot plan your life. And if you do, you should have about twelve back up plans and had better be prepared to think on your feet when all of those fail.You can’t predict the future. You can wish…my God, can you wish. And when things go awry you can suppress it, which is a thing I am pretty good at. But the absolute best thing to do is to pick up, dust off, and move on—always forward.

Bad things happen, but the magnitude of the situation always lessens. Time and distance make things smaller (kind of like when you go back to your elementary school and all the stalls and sinks are super short in the bathrooms and you’re like ‘what the hell?’). In that John Green book that made me ugly cry, he said “grief does not change you…it reveals you.” I’ve had my share of grief and I would like to think it have revealed me…resilient, good-humored, kind, and on a constant quest for self-improvement. I’m just not there yet.

I don’t know if any of these things make sense, or even go together. Chances are no one has read this far down…at least without a smoke break or a nap or something. I just know that ten years ago, I thought I had my life plans made. I did not. These days things might sometimes might seem dismal, because currently, I feel like I’m going to fall down the stairs and die alone with this fat brown dog having to go tell everyone like Lassie had to tell everyone about Timmy’s misadventures. Our current state is not our constant state. Things often seem perpetual, but they change quickly…without you even realizing it. All these experiences, good and bad that have led me to this place where I’m just as confused as ever, should not be suppressed, and I’m learning that. They are like the photos…keep the blurry, ugly faced ones along with the good ones. That way you can remember things as they really were, not just the versions you’ve created.

So, there’s a really decent chance that ten years from now, I will be running errands some gloomy Sunday and hear some equally ridiculous opening line (corn rows and manicured toes? Really?)of a pop song from my thirties and have a wave of nostalgia rush over me. There’s a glimmer of hope that when I hear something like “Baby, you a soooong” (I figured we could keep the Nelly theme, and he did a remix of that Cruise song—go Nelly, for having a career that spans decades and makes me review my entire life…also, what does “baby, you a song” even mean??) I will think of the previous ten years and they will have had much less tragic and traumatic events. There’s a possibility that I will be successful, have a family, kids, or whatever it is people do (I wouldn’t know…I’m still a 4 year old that can’t get it together). I know one thing, though—hope is GOOD. And while I’ve lost so much, I’ve never lost hope.

xoarl