There’s a kind of motto I came up with (or stole? It’s so
hard to tell) when I was in Texas trying to figure out what the hell I was
doing with my life. “Live broadly, love deeply”. It is still kind of a mission
statement of my life but the thing is it’s hard to do both at the same time.
For the last couple of years, I’ve been cultivating the
courage it takes to living broadly. Going new places, trying new things,
spending a lot of time alone doing the things that I want to do, experiencing
new parts of the country and the culture. I started dancing again: first jazz,
then hip hop, then Latin, I learned how to catch and tag sparrows and rats and
snakes, I tried new restaurants by myself, went camping by myself, spent all
day with the ocean alone, had strange wonderful conversations with random
strangers. I’ve seen and done a lot of amazing things and I am extremely proud
of the person I’ve become in that time (or perhaps, always was).
But it’s been really, really lonely. I have a lot of friends
I love a tremendous amount and a couple I even keep in pretty good contact with
but the phone can only do so much. I’ve made a lot of fantastic acquaintances.
I love meeting new people, but it’s
hard to really get to know them beyond a surface level, hard to integrate yourself
into their life when you both know you’re leaving in a couple months. Hard too,
to break yourself of the habit of being a loner enough to try to get close to
them. It’s a layer of protection when you know you get attached easily and are
leaving soon (plus a lot of underlying trust issues that made me want to be a
loner in the first place but we won’t get into that here). Here in Florida has also
been the least social field job I’ve ever had. Even though I live with several
people who all seem pretty cool, I almost never see them. We all pretty much just
smile and wave when we pass each other in the kitchen and basically don’t talk
or hang out. It’s weird. And that was sort of how I felt living in South
Carolina, too. It felt very temporary. Living with my parents was very familiar
but also a little uncomfortable. There comes a point at which you can’t go home
again, not for very long (especially when “going home” is a brand new house in
a state you’d never been to). I made some friends but by the time we started
getting close I was leaving. I loved Charleston, I loved exploring the city and
living on the coast and all the new experiences, but it was broad and not deep.
I left Wisconsin triumphantly in January, planning not to
come back for more than a short visit for a long time. I’ve been saying I want out
of the Midwest for YEARS and I do hate the winters and the springs, now that I
know that spring in the Southeast lasts for MONTHS and is BEAUTIFUL and full of
FLOWERS instead of lasting for two weeks and being mostly mud.
But I went back to Wisconsin a few weeks ago. I’m sorry if
you’re a Wisconsinite reading this and I didn’t tell you I was there. I was
only going for a few days and I wanted deep quality time with the few people I
was going to see. I stayed with Gordon, with whom I’ve had a strange, slowly
growing relationship for a while now. We’ve been quiet about it, we didn’t
really know what it was. It didn’t truly
solidify into something really real
until we saw each other again. After months of phone calls it felt so good to be with him. So much better than I imagined. It was indescribable. I
don’t even really want to try except to say that it was such an intense amount
of love and care that it was sometimes too bright to look at.
I went down to see Jenny and her brand new tiny human. I got
to the hospital the day after she gave birth. I’ve never seen a baby that fresh
before. I helped Jenny get in and out of her chair, still in a lot of pain from
her C-section, and held baby Charlotte who slept peacefully and made tiny
squeaky noises while Jenny and I talked about our lives and our loves and
everything. Rob stayed to chat for a minute before he went off to check on Ryker
and they both insisted if I ever wanted to I could stay with them and Charlotte’s
hair and chubby cheeks were softer than anything in the world and it felt unbelievably good to be a part of that
family.
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| LOOK AT THAT FACE |
The next day we met Maggie for breakfast. I literally ran down the street and flung myself at
her. God I love her so much. We held hands and sat in a tree and dangled our
feet over the water and talked about everything and cried and laughed and
hugged and kissed each other’s faces and I have missed her. So. Much. And we
vowed that even though we are both terrible at long-distance communication that
our love will never ever ever decrease, only increase and pieces of me that I
hadn’t realized were missing fell back into place.
After that Gordon and I went to see my horse. I’ve owned
Lark for 16 years and I hadn’t seen him since January, one of the longest
absences ever. He let me hug his face – which he never does. He stood
completely still while I untangled his tail for an hour – which he never does.
He was patient and sweet in a way that showed me that he had really missed me.
I rode him bareback and it felt like coming home. Gordon even got on – his first
time on a horse – and it was maybe the cutest thing that has ever happened.
Afterwards we stood with Lark as he ate grass, just standing quietly with him
and listening to the munch of his teeth which is one of my favorite sounds in
the whole world. I like to just stand while he eats, to be part of his herd,
because that’s how horses bond. Gordon understood and stood quietly with us,
the three of us herding.
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| TRUE LOVE |
And I burst into tears. Gordon put his arm around me and I
buried my face in Lark’s mane and Lark made comforting munchy noises and I just
sobbed. It felt like my heart had grown twelve sizes and still overflowed.
The truth is that I am really good at the living broadly
part. It’s not that hard for me at this point. I like being alone, I’m brave
about trying new things, I am curious and fascinated by everything…I could
spend my whole life skating along the surface exploring new things and meeting
new people. Loving deeply is hard. I
didn’t realize how hard until recently. Through a lot of talking to Gordon and
some therapy and some medication I have realized…well, a lot of things that I’m
not going to go into now. Suffice it to say I’ve been numb and terrified for a
very long time. I crave deep, real, love,
but never feel like I can break through and find it. I haven’t felt it in
person like that for a very long time and I certainly wasn’t prepared for
feeling so much love so intensely in 24 hours.
For a long time, I thought that real strength meant Independence,
meant being off on adventures alone. And I’ve certainly found that kind of
strength in myself the last few years and I love it and it is so much fun. It’s
one of my favorite things about myself. But I think the much more difficult
(for me) kind of strength and courage is the strength to be open and let others
in. That would be a much braver act for me. I still have a lot of work left to
do but I am definitely less numb now than I have been in a very long time. I’m
not ready to settle down forever, but I want a community. I want people around
that I love and to build real trust, to really feel like I can be open. I want to
be able to really get to know new people. And really get to know a new city! I
want to be a regular somewhere. It’s so strange that that sounds so much more
terrifying to me than running off and living in a trailer in the middle of
nowhere in Texas, or driving all over the country on a solo roadtrip, or any
other low-paid, short term, dangerous job alone in the boonies. I think a lot of that has to
do with the fear that learning to love deeply and trust others and forging a
friend family for myself will take away my ability to run all over the world
alone and do crazy shit, but that’s the beautiful part: I don’t have to choose.
I can have both. Live broadly AND love deeply, after all. I just have to prove
it, to work hard at it. It’s a challenge. And luckily, I’m both competitive and
stubborn.
So this is my current Life Plan:
Tomorrow is the last day of my job here in Florida, which I
have absolutely loved. I’m going to go back to South Carolina for a couple of
days and then I’m driving back to Wisconsin and staying with Gordon and Andrea
for a while. I am extremely nervous and excited about this. I’ll visit as many
Midwest friends as possible while still having time to just be in Beloit. I’ll really sit down and work at applying to grad schools. Two to
three years for a masters is a good amount of time to find a new place, settle,
make new but real friends, build a community, etc. But before I go to grad
school, I’m going to Europe. Alone. To just wander and adventure and see things
I’ve never seen before.
Live broadly, love deeply. This is my plan, anyway. Maybe it’ll
fall through. Maybe I’ll chicken out. Maybe something will go terribly wrong.
Maybe I won’t get into grad school. I’m terrified about basically every part of
it, but then again, I’m terrified all the time. So. Nothing to do but walk forward
with my eyes, mind, and heart wide open and see what happens.
