How I Turned 46

Celebrating an anniversary of my life was a daunting prospect when a month prior my doctor had put me at death’s door.  Many handed me the gift-wrapped rhetoric of “you’ve survived!” and “this year will be better!”  I have learned to smile politely and say the things that people are looking to hear.  

There are some things I have learned since blowing out the candles of my last birthday cake.  I’ve learned how to die with both fear and grace.  I have found my old sense of humor that had seemingly gone astray.  I have realized the best thing I can do at times is to not say anything at all.

And I have at last found my worth.

People always ask “why do you write?” and I never have a fully formed answer.  I’ve often felt inferior in the face of other writers who have glorious imaginations or intense passions for the written word.  For me, it’s always been about having a conversation with myself.  More recently, I’ve been working on a series of short fiction stories that tie in with my music obsession.  But you see, I’m a writer of little imagination.  Too often I am grounded in reality and despite the dark clouds that hover over me, I rather like it that way.  Telling the very real tales that are universal yet uniquely different – it leaves me feeling that I have a place in what is a very large world.  

Of course, it’s easy to delude myself into thinking that what I’m doing, I’m doing very well.  I believe people when they tell me as much, but I almost wish that just once someone would tell me I’m terrible at what I do and that I should drop my pen before I truly poison someone with it.  Perhaps then I’d feel as though I’ve arrived.  

It came about that this year on my 46^th birthday, I would be spending it in the company of two women, one whom I admired very much and the other who was more well known in the literary world than I’ll ever be.  I was to be presenting them at a lecture later in the evening.  Being an extremely shy person by nature, I spent weeks wondering what would I talk to these two authors about.  Being a bestseller?  Writing award-winning work?  Having my words acted out before thousands?  That’s all about them, not about me.  I wanted to ask advice, to walk away with more knowledge and instead, I walked away with an experience that held a magic I hadn’t expected.

I’ve met many celebrities in my time.  Some pretty impressive names.  This evening, however, on the 9^thday of August, I did not have dinner with two well known authors.  I shared a meal with two best friends who welcomed me into their world for an evening.  They laughed and displayed a familiarity with each other that I envied.  I’ve lost many friends as of late and being on the fringes of such a relationship made me miss having that in my own life.  

Victoria and Anne have only known each other for just a few years but sometimes instant connections quickly make up for a lifetime.  They mothered over me as I picked at my macaroni and cheese, but I was more interested in the conversation swirling around me.  They talked of how they’d met, chuckled over shopping excursions, told of how they collaborated and didn’t hold back on each other’s bad habits.  There was no pretense, no politeness, only an authentic affection for each other and even for me too.  Victoria has enchanted me from the time we first met with her talent and energy.  As I spoke to them both, I related my own stories of edits and creations and inspiration.  Then we talked of personal issues such as family and childhoods the state of the nation today.  I was privy to not only what made these two women successful, but what made them human. While our experiences were different from each other’s, there was a universal bond and I thought, I belong here.

And I felt my worth.  

It was at the end when the birthday brownie arrived at the table, complete with a candle to make a wish on, that I truly sensed a kinship.  They could have simply said “Happy birthday” upon learning of the day, but Anne and Victoria took the extra step to make it special.  Such a simple act left this old girl still believing that good does exist in this war-torn world.  

These are the gifts that need no pretty paper or bright bows.  These are the gifts that cannot be bought because time can’t be found in any store.  It’s not what others can do for me, it’s learning what I have to offer of myself.  

The Traveling Soldier

He’s a little shy so she gave him a smile.  He said “Would you mind sittin’ down for a while and talking to me, I’m feeling a little low…”

All of the songs in the world are jumbled in my head right now.  In trying to reign just one out of the clouds, it only makes me feel more lost among them. 

I read a beautiful essay today titled Even Hitler Had a Wife by James DeKoven.  I’d never known of this writer before today but as everything does, his words came along at just a pivotal time. 

I’ve always been drawn to complex women. Intelligent, opinionated, philosophical, not-so-perfect childhoods, maybe a little crazy. They say it’s foolish, even dangerous to date that kind of a woman, but when is it not risky to expose your heart?

These opening lines haunted me, as they strongly resembled my former self.  Age has tamed me in this last third of my life, but at my core I still feel driven to be wanted as that girl.  The wild, complex, free-reign one who reveled in being so misunderstood. 

Today I’m chatting with three lovely bartenders about their day as I try to examine my life over a mountain of shellfish and butter drenched biscuits.  Times have changed.

My priorities have shifted.  I need to feel desired by men for my soul rather than crazy sex fantasies in the minds of wayward boys.  I want women to relate to me as a companion and not be seen as competition.  The meaning of life comes to me in the smallest and most gigantic of ways.  I am a fool to walk blindly through the songs and not listen to the words. 

This past week has been tremendously emotional.  On Thursday, I was breaking down, unable to sleep for days in a row and quite worried about my state of mind.  My husband listened with a measured ear to my tearful confessions that I was teetering on an edge.  Then Friday brought me a day long conversation with a handsome man that went long into the evening.  It was the most meaningful dialogue I’d had in some time and filled a cavern in me that had been growing wider in the lonely nights.  Saturday, I had to put on my in-charge mask as I encouraged leadership in others by playing strong and relating my own experiences.  As I tried to come down from that, I allowed myself a short time away from the world in hopes of short-term repair.  By the time Sunday came to deliver some heavy news, I was done.  My head was preoccupied with just everything. 

This wonderful new friend I had the hope of knowing and spending time with had received news that he was being transferred way to the other side of the country.  He is a military man, and our talks had been engaging on so many levels.  We both shared a love of comedy, of theatre, and long, frank conversations.  Roger is my best companion, but we all need to have our independence and outer influences.  Having lost so many of my closest friends, I’d been craving someone to come along with whom I could just be.  It is rare to find someone who demands nothing, wants everything, and will never ask for anything I’m not ready to give. 

In telling me that he had to leave, and understanding its impact on someone like myself, he’s shown patience and kept me smiling through the sadness.  He spoke of his self-obligation to do what he needed to do, but the effect it’s kept on his personal life and the love he’s had to leave behind.  “This is the life I lead.  It is what it is.”  I heard in his voice the same notes of loneliness that I often read in my own words.  It’s given me much to think about and has opened up a lot that’s been suppressed for some time.  This connection has taken me to a place I need to return to, but it is a painful place.  It is a stark reminder, however, that it’s okay to be afraid of life sometimes, but we must march forward and feel anything that we need to feel in every moment that we have. 

Pete kept telling me that if he’d known he would be receiving these orders, he would not have initiated this friendship, based upon what of me he knows.  In that, I would have missed out on this profoundly lyrical life moment, and the rarity of being understood.  I don’t know how adept I’ve become at any kind of loss, because I freewheel between detachment and stabbings of hurt, but I’m going to feel this one.  I'm slowly learning, though, the difference between death and distance. 

Songs are meant to be sung; sometimes in our heads when we can’t find the voice to sing out loud.  They surround us like clouds in a sky.  Every once in a blue moon, I have the fortune of reigning one in. 

He said “I bet you got a boyfriend but I don’t care, I got no one to send a letter to.  Would you mind if I sent one back here to you…?”

Sincerity

I’m a walking cliché even when I’m soaked in sincerity… the truth about the truth is it isn’t going anywhere

I always mark the greatness of a road trip by the degree of voice I have left by the time I arrive home. 

It used to be I never hit the streets without risk of losing my voice.  Car concerts have been a staple of mine beginning with my mom, continuing with my girlfriends and then it became a private show between me my pretty Firebird.  Mom’s been gone for thirty years now, my girlfriends are distant and the buzz of my little red sportster isn’t quite the same as the low rumble that once covered up my way off-key performances.  Change has never been easy for me because it’s a cover song for letting go. 

I’ve been carrying a lot for an awful long time, and the road was always a good place to let it all drop when I needed to.  I could release just enough to keep holding on.  It all began to pile on until the hills became mountains, and I was speeding downward so fast it was like my brake line had been cut. 

Then I slammed into a wall.  Sometimes we walk away from that, and sometimes we wish we didn’t. 

Tomorrow I’ll be saying goodbye to yet another friend.  The older I become, the lonelier life gets.  The last three years have been blurred by tragedy, abandonment, solitude and more reflection than a wishing pond.  When the darkness became real, I had to drag myself through every single day.  It was of no help that many of those days included moving on and refusing to let go.  I resented the endless “celebrations of life” because their lives are over but mine isn’t.  Everyone now wants to pretty up a funeral but it doesn’t take the sadness away, does it? 

Everyone has heard “if you love someone, set them free…” but setting them free was giving up and I haven’t ever been very good at that.  Funny for a girl who lacks follow through.  However, if there’s one thing I have needed to take away from the misery, it is that letting go is how we free ourselves to move forward. 

The real fear comes in others giving up on me.  Sometimes they don’t die; sometimes they just walk away.  “When you see yourself thinking of me, of us, years from now … say you see me on the street somewhere, or remember the moments we’ve shared, will you think of us and smile?” I was asked this one blazing summer day.  There were no clouds to protect me, no rain to mask my tears, and nobody to save my broken heart.  I couldn’t answer because people who can’t remember the past lose their ability to see the future. 

I’ve been trying these past few weeks to regain my compassion, my familiar place because, you see, I’d been letting go.  It’s the be careful what you ask for syndrome; when we ask for peace, it can come in ways we may not want.  I needed to heal, so I tried to shut out all of the noise.  In essence, I needed to lose the person I had become.  In that, I have lost time, and thoughts or stories that should have been written only now I can’t remember them.  They’ve disappeared to that place that doesn’t have a name but lives inside of us all.

I recently asked that love if sad smiles counted in my memory of us.  “Well, no.” came his more-logical-than-me reply.  “Sad smiles are still sad.” 

In the search for my not so distant self, I felt like I was driving fast but not getting too far.  I’ve replaced the sadness with a numbing static.  Buckle up, get down to business, and rely only on myself.  Limits, labels and roadmaps have never really been my thing so trying to put myself on an advised course hasn’t taken me as far as anyone thought it should. 

I found that when I stopped talking about the things that nobody wanted to hear, I didn’t like myself so much.  I suddenly had become boring, ordinary, as though I’ve given in to the demands of others to be who I am never going to be. 

We can wish for peace, but we need to risk sacrifice in return.  We can’t ever have anything without losing something. 

Last week, I went for a drive.  For the first time since I can’t remember when, I gave every song everything I had in me.  When I arrived home late that night, my voice was exhausted.  A song will always have the power to soothe or stab me, just as any friend does. 

Hope is what feeds the peace inside.  It doesn’t need to be grandiose, over the top or floating on a rainbow.  In letting go, sometimes the road brings us back together but to a new place.  Sometimes we can revisit the places we left behind but see it in a new way, begin a new journey from the same starting point. 

In every goodbye, there comes a hello; sometimes in a familiar voice. 

Yesterday, I watched this movie play out on a big screen, and at the end the redheaded woman stood at the ocean in the setting sun, embracing the rugged older man and as they gazed upon each other, I felt the tug of a memory, and I smiled. 

Sometimes you get what you steal.  Sometimes you see things for real and sometimes sincerity feels like you’re lying…

© May 21, 2016

Lyrics:  Sincerity / Miggs

Footprints On a Ledge

Take your memories when you go, but leave no footprint behind.

Take a walk with me. 

I’m not a hiker, actually.  Nor am I a biker, a wanderer, or an adventurist.  You won’t find me out in the woods, unless it’s hugging fast to a curve along the paved road.  I stumble enough through life, despite my destined path, to go taking a header into a cold river in the middle of nowhere.  I will live vicariously through the minds of Cheryl Strayed and Bill Bryson, hikers of two famous trails on opposite ends of our America. 

Even when I was young, the only need I ever had to go far from here was because home was a place I was afraid to be.  In 44 years, I have stayed because like any other dysfunction, home is what I know.  Fear and sadness and anger are familiar rooms to lock myself away in.  The sun is a cloud that darkens my every step, causing me to return until I can feel safe again in the moon’s light.

Safety, like happiness, is a fleeting fall of rain; I know that it exists, enough to keep moving forward in search of it, but the canyons in between are hard to navigate without the proper gear.  Things like strength, courage, and motivation are in short supply.  I’ve been using them instinctively, not keeping track of my inventory, and the problem I’m finding is having no idea where I am on my map.  These resources haven’t only been a part of my own survival, but I’ve been foolish enough to share them along the way. 

Perhaps I’ve given away too much.

Somehow I have fallen down onto a ledge, and I don’t know how to climb back from it.  There is further to fall, which isn’t abating my fear of heights any.  What’s happened is that I let myself be pushed here. I have let people push me further and further until my confidence gave way like sliding rocks.  Now I’m stranded and either too blind to see the hands reaching out to me or delusional enough to believe they exist. 

We’re wandering now, and I’m not supposed to do that.  I’m supposed to stay focused, eye on the mountain peak, and all that crap.  They say to name my emotions, like bread crumbs to leave behind as proof that I made a journey. 

How can I leave no footprint behind me when I need proof that I have lived? 

The better question is who am I proving myself to? 

The nearest star is 4.5 light years away.  That’s 26 trillion miles.  There are more galaxies in the universe than there are grains of sand on the earth.

That’s pretty big.

And we are very small.

 

I feel as though I’ve traveled 26 trillion miles, and have collected many stars along the way like stones in my pocket.  Some have lit the path ahead, many have burned to the touch but I held them tightly anyway.  Silly me.  The thing is, with all of those stars inside of me, I am not so small.  My soul strives to be bigger than that which contains it. 

This isn’t what I set about writing today.  I wanted to exorcise my anger, to let the wind take it from me, but when I began to scribble one word after another, it wasn’t the footprint I wanted to leave behind today.  And I do want to prove to myself that I have lived, because this day will become forgotten like all of the others.  It will remain, however, a lost letter unless I figure out how to rescue myself from this ledge. 

What I think is so intimidating about climbing mountains is that we’re only supposed to find satisfaction when we reach the top, when we stand with arms outstretched to a blue sky and proclaim victory. 

I don’t know why I have to take on every day as if it were a mountain. 

This cliff, too, is like home to me.  It’s what I know.  Today I am tired, but tomorrow perhaps I will take hold of my fear and sadness and anger and I will tie them together with knots of strength, courage and motivation. 

If I let it be known that I was here, then maybe the next person who tumbles onto the same ledge will know they weren’t the only one who fell along the way.

We didn’t even get to Mount Katahdin.

Another mountain, Bill?  How many do you need to see?

 

 

© September 2, 2015

Quotes:  A Walk In the Woods / Bill Bryce

Do They Know It's Christmas?

There's a world outside your window, and it's filled with dread and fear where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears...

Used to be I would anticipate the holidays despite the family heartaches because I could always find something to take root and make Christmas shine just a little bit.  Traditions were essential; the first song was chosen carefully - the theme to sum up the year - and played the morning after the turkey carving, the tree was pulled out for weeks of dream gazing, lights were strung outside to glow into a winter's night, and overflowing baskets of warm cookies were to be given away.

To quote the good witch, it's fun to be popular.

Now, the music becomes tired long before the season has begun, the tree is a hassle, my husband grows more tired each year of climbing on the roof to string up cheap lights that rarely work, and the cookie list became too long to keep up. 

Some things remain. Theme songs, a dream has a possibility, occasional treats from the oven, an anonymous glass of wine at crowded bar for someone who seems blue.  The gathering of toys for kids in need of a Christmas is what grounds me.  Someone asked why, when I'm so not a kid person, this was such an important cause to me.  I began to reflect on my mom, and how she worked to put her special touch on holidays she knew were more difficult for us than every other day of the year.  Perhaps it's in her memory I want others to have their moments as well. 

I'm not a religious person, so is it hypocritical that I am accepting of gifts and indulge in the name of Christmas when I don't believe in the cause?  As the year comes to a close, I focus on endings, beginnings, the people who have passed through and those who've chosen to stay.  It's about taking inventory of my world. 

Through my work, I communicate with strangers on the internet every day.  I talk with them, hear their stories, and learn about lives other than my own.  They are snowflakes - they may look the same on the surface, but each is different from the next.  Reaching out is what keeps me connected in my solitude.  Writing can be a lonely journey; many of our friends are imaginary, our worlds are painted inside of our own minds, and our words are carefully constructed.  I write about my life to prove its authenticity.  These strangers contradict my own views and show me our universal truths as well.  Without them, I would be one snowflake falling.

One tiny invisible snowflake.

Someone said to me in a letter today, " I suppose if Christmas was a football, I'd be Charlie Brown feeling perennial hope snatched away at the last moment.  I seem to be near another nadir, looking for hope.  I have a small window but haven't found the door."  It was ensconced in a long letter describing the meaning of his Christmas. 

Once in awhile something stands out demanding my attention, be it a song, a whisper, or a word and suddenly things will make sense for just that moment.  Another letter read, " If you are looking for someone worse off than you to brighten up your holidays then I can show you what Christmas is all about."  He is without a home, working two jobs and trying to bring his family to live under one roof again.  " So this year for Christmas I'm all alone living in my car trying to figure out where to park and sleep each night.  I have a full-time job during the day and part-time job 5 nights a week with working an average of 75 hours weekly. I'm one of the lucky homeless."

There's a world outside my window.

Snowflakes adrift all around me, too many of us lost in the storm but in the midst of my own blizzard are people showing me their faithful longings.  How could  I not see the divinity in that? 

Another letter came to me in the mail today, written in hand by an old friend who's become new again.  Jim wrote: "You're living out Gandhi's vision when he challenged us to 'be the change you wish to see in the world.'  Thanks for bringing the real meaning of Christmas to so many and for allowing others to share in the endeavor." 

With many friends around me to join hands, I am not invisible.

It is in the quiet winter evenings that I read these letters, with colorful lights like a sky full of stars dotting the tree in the corner casting their light on my husband's face as he sleeps with our two furry  girls snuggled in tight against him.  Angels may be out there getting their wings, kids might be praying for that one toy they can't live without, and malls are filled with a false joy reflected from the grand silver and gold ornaments hanging above the weary shoppers.  Across the globe, people are starving, and not just for food to nourish them.  They don't know a Christmas like we do. 

We give from afar to brighten our holidays, thinking it will absolve our sins in the year behind us.  We drop our needs into stockings hung above a fire where they beg for warmth.  Our expectations for new beginnings are wrapped up in glittery ribbons and searched for at the bottom of a sparkling glass of liquid hope.  Where will you find your Christmas moment?  

Look around, feel the snow fall on your skin, let the iciness melt as it touches you.  And feed the world.

In our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy.  Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime...

 

 

(c)  Kymberlie Ingalls  -  December 3rd, 2013

Lyrics:  Do They Know It's Christmas?  /  Band Aid