If my life were a road,

Sheryl Crow said, “everyday is a winding road”.

If my life were a road, I like to compare it to the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, in China (a very long, dangerous, winding road, passing by Buddhist monasteries and herds of yaks).

My first big, winding turn [as an adult] on Self Discovery Rd. was taken from being a runaway teen in Dallas, TX into the fashion world in Los Angeles, CA. (We won’t even get into childhood here, I don’t want to give you whiplash.) I then drove around the bend, going from the city streets of LA to a permaculture farm in rural Baldwin City, KS. Going from managing domestic apparel production in Downtown Los Angeles to living in a yurt on a small forest farm in Northwest Kansas was an unexpected redirect, to say the least. I love living on a farm, but making a living as a farmer, I decided, was not for me. Hard, manual labor, turns out, is not my thing.

The third big pivot on the road of my Life was from farming to healing and the world of spirituality. Living on a forest farm awakened my senses. Long-buried pains came up to be seen. I was unprepared and unskilled for the intense emotional uproar that ensued. The New Age made me [& still makes me] feel sick to my stomach. So…

I fled to an unforeseen dark side of the road. Some call this side of the road the dark night of the soul. It was a seemingly endless part of my road; full of years soaked in addiction and emotional turmoil. It’s true what they say, you can run but you can’t hide; the only way out is through. Slowly but surely, I made my way back to the light side of the road. It took a while. Longer than I would have liked. I fought every step of the way. Parts of me didn’t survive the battle. I love how David Foster Wallace said, “Everything I ever let go of has claw marks on it.” I feel you, D.

I have a feeling some parts of the road cannot be rushed.

While on this dark side of the road, I was blaming myself for my road not being a straight one. For all the “failed” relationships, for all the “lost” jobs, for all the moves (I’ve moved 46 times in my life), for the deep grief & rage I have felt. As tears continue to pour out of me like a never-ending stream flowing out of mountain rock, I find myself loosening my grip on control, and have come to accept my winding road. All my big turns have just been big changes and big changes take courage. When I think of it now, how hard I used to cling to what I thought I wanted, I see so clearly how I was desperately grasping to control my life as a way to avoid my pain. The mother of one of my closest friends once told me, “Did you think you would be the only person to ever live who would not face pain?” The denial, drugs, and disassociation tactics did such a great job of hiding mine for so long, I am embarrassed to say that, yes, I did think I could escape it. Sadly, or perhaps not, drugs are rough on the body, and the relief they bring, like everything else, does not last forever. When something has worked for so long, it’s hard to let it go. Even though I knew my old strategies were no longer working, I kept falling into old patterns. It took years for me to change my long-time, go-to coping mechanisms for regulating my nervous system because I was attached to this part of myself who I felt had gotten me so far. And it’s true, this part of myself, this part I didn’t want to let go of, she did get me out of incredibly dangerous situations, she got me into design school, she got me countless jobs, any boyfriend I wanted… she was a fierce survivor. And, at the same time, things had changed. I was no longer looking to just survive.

‘Remember, everything is right until it’s wrong. You’ll know when it’s wrong.” — Ernest Hemingway

After my seventh long-term, live-in [romantic] relationship fell apart, [again] in a brutal fashion, I let self-hatred invade my body. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror for years without rolling my eyes or sending myself some kind of cruel look of dissatisfaction. I disowned myself. At the time, it felt like no one could love me, reminding me, of course, of my parents. These “failed” relationships were just the proof my ego needed to validate my deepest fear- that my parents must have been right- I must be unworthy of love. It’s so silly when I think of it now, but back then, it did not feel silly at all. It felt like a serrated dagger stuck in my heart.

Needless to say, this idea of me being unworthy of love wasn’t true at all. It wasn’t even true that no one else could love me- I was loved. People can only love you as much as they love themselves, but I was loved as much as anyone was able. The whole time it was me who was not loving, not trusting, not believing in, myself. I kept changing, and the people I was in relationships with weren’t changing. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t mean I’m a failure, or unworthy of love, or even that there’s anyone to blame. C’est la vie.

As parts of me begrudgingly died along the dark side highway in hell, a newness was emerging. As I was dying, I was simultaneously birthing. Part of me was driving, part of me was dying, and part of me was giving birth in the back seat, screaming.

I imagine it’s what birthing an actual child is like, minus the major physical shifts. You go through a time when you’re constantly changing; it feels hard, painful & confusing, and maybe you’re not sure what to make of it. After a while, you just want to let it OUT, you’re sick of carrying it inside. You go into labor, an intensity, a peak of pain, and then, out of your own body, a new person is all of a sudden present. Someone unfamiliar and at the same time, not. There’s a recognition, a knowing, that your life will never be the same. You know you’re in love even though you don’t really know this person yet. And even though you feel scared, you know that somehow, some way, it’s all going to be ok. To birth a new part of yourself is a true labor. It takes tremendous effort, especially if you, like me, struggle with attachment. Like Bowie said, “It ain’t easy.”

Today, the light side of the road led me to the library; a lovely turn. To visit a good library is to visit an old friend.

Spending hours in a library reminds me of the days when I was a true vagabond. The libraries are kind to vagabonds. I have been fortunate enough to [usually] always land in places with excellent libraries. I write to you now from the most wonderful library in Ashland, OR. Something about being in a good library calms my nervous system. Maybe it’s the whispers, the smells, the unspoken mutual love for books, and sitting quietly. There seems to always be a level of respect present in a good library. A felt sense of gratitude and reverence. Good books can do that to you.

When I first left LA (really, even when I was still living in LA), I was penniless, relying completely on the goodwill of others, more specifically, usually, my boyfriends. Looking back now it’s miraculous how I made it through six states without a penny to my name. When I left the farm in Baldwin City I went to go stay with my boyfriend in Kansas City, where he was working. While he went to work every day, I’d spend my days at the library. We lived in a big broken-down house (it was being remodeled), owned by my boyfriend’s boss. It was always one of my dreams to live in a big broken-down house, and this one came true. There was no air conditioning, no furniture, no working kitchen, we slept on an air mattress, rarely had hot water, fought often, and yet, I remember it with a profound fondness. There was a balcony outside our bedroom with a hammock and a ladder leading down to the backyard where there lived an empty pool. A raccoon would climb up the ladder and chill in the hammock. Sometimes he would come in our room to say hi. Chickens from the neighboring house came to our front door wanting to hang out. We had a hamster named Penelope who we brought with us from LA. She got lost, and found, in this big broken down house. Miraculously, when we found her she was alive although altered. We figured she drank some bad water or ate something that wasn’t good for her. She didn’t survive long after we found her but just the fact that she was found at all was a gift. Penelope was a fierce lover of life. We rescued her from the pet shop, she had survived being attacked by a cat and only had three legs. We made obstacle courses for her and she would jump off the side of the coffee table (a cliff, for her) without hesitation. We always caught her and wondered if she was an adrenaline junkie or if she wanted to end it. I like to think she was just fearless after surviving the cat attack.

I’m quite the cliff jumper, myself. As self-hatred leaves my body, I realize the amazing road I’ve been on. I think because I don’t have any of the traditional markers of success (and experienced one specific loss that cut me to my absolute core, causing me, for a time, to truly not want to be alive any longer) I fell into a harsh self-criticism that was more like a kind of sick self-hatred (all self-hatred is sick, btw). I lost my lust for life. I lost my lust for myself. I lost my lust. There was no lust, only longing. Not the good kind of longing (is there a good kind of longing?) but the kind of desperate longing for something that can never be. The kind of longing that makes you nauseous with grief and rage. Letting go of what I thought I wanted more than anything else in the world was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But here I am, back in the library, penniless once again and yet, feeling lusty, like I finally want to live again. I was lucky enough today to find a spot in the library next to an open window with a view. An Ash tree waves to me from outside, a huge Cypress stands tall, and a few other trees, too, whom I don’t yet know. Small white flowers are blooming through the grass. I am happy as can be. I don’t know where my next turn will lead but I’m here for the ride.

Share