I got lost yesterday. Not lost in just the usual way that people get lost, but lost all the same, in some long neglected place in my past where I faintly recall an indescribable feeling. A part of me recalled a way of being years ago, that somewhere along the way, has begun to elude me.
Perhaps we all get such familiar yet unnamed stirrings of emotion when we travel back to where home began. I knew when I woke up, my plans for the day but my mental preparation notwithstanding, the day turned into something of a cord, stretched between then and now over which I traveled with rubber-band like tension pulling me back to the present when all I wanted was to reach for the past.
One of the surest bets in life is that none of us will make it to our graves without regrets, mistakes or losses. The abominations of humanity, they keep us humble and give us pause when no matter how we play our cards, they remain inevitable. For years I prided myself on my regrets and missteps. I thought they might someday define my life as one well-lived. Instead, I drive home from work some days with a heavy lump at the center of me, making me heavy in my seat, making my legs too feeble to even lift me out of the car when I get home. And carry me to what? My legs. To a tiny kitchen, too small to turn around in, a messing living room that hasn't seen a vacuum in how long? To a couch, three years old, already beginning to take on the shape of my ass where I sit too long, watching make-believe lives run themselves out in a few hours at most, while my own passes by like a parade just outside my door.
Thus, the spiral of thoughts begins when I travel too close to my origins and cannot, hard as I try, scrape something of the warm and kind and good together to keep for myself when I turn to walk away.
In the last four years I've stood by the gravesides of both my parents, trying to squelch the flood of emotion that begged to escape me. I push it away when it wells up in my eyes as I wash dishes or remember an old song. My father used to press his lips together, hands trembling, as he tried to swallow back tears that already were escaping his eyes. It never took much to make him cry. Maybe he gave that to me, that uncontrollable well of emotion that springs from my eyes, and maybe my red faced shame when I wipe my eyes of them are gifts from him as well.
I sat at a funeral yesterday, not of anyone I ever knew or loved, but a funeral nonetheless. The deceased, the sister of my friend, I traveled there with him to show respect and to support him. I listened to the same sermon preached at every funeral, of life and death, then life-eternal. At one time, those ideas gave me peace; now they fill me with doubt. "Why do we think so much of ourselves?" I wonder. "That once we are, we cannot imagine a version of reality in which we no longer exist." And then I wonder, if we all believed in this life as much as we want to believe in the next, how would we live it differently?
I must admit, I might change a few things, but overall I think I've landed exactly in the spot meant for me. Over the years many paths opened themselves to me, but I chose this one or fate chose that one and I rolled with it. Some things in this life we get to control, and others, well, we just have to accept. Sometimes I accept without a fight and other times I wrestle with an unbeatable foe before finally surrendering, skulking away with my fists still clenched in defiant indignation. A healthy bit of anger at life can be good for us, after all.
If you came here looking for a hopeful message, I'm afraid you might leave disappointed today. All the words I can offer today spring from a well of my own discontent. As I scramble to hold onto any semblance of good in myself or in my choices, or in this simple life I somehow managed to scratch together for me and my boy, all I can say to you is, find something solid and sure and love-filled in your own world and hold on tight. I plan to do the same.
