Riff

We’re attempting to meet for dinner, my sons and I.  We’ve tried two dates now, only to end up aborting both at the last minute because he is hung up unexpectedly at work. The text messages flying back and forth culminate in frustration:  “I hate this adulting thing, planning stuff is so hard now.” 

The Urban Dictionary defines adulting as follows:  “to do grown up things and hold responsibilities such as, a 9-5 job, a mortgage/rent, a car payment, or anything else that makes one think of grown-ups.”  I’ve been thinking lately that I hate this adulting thing, too.

Lying on my yoga mat the tears well up in my eyes. The instructors repeat this often:  Letting go of thoughts and feelings that don’t serve us can often manifest itself in strong emotions during class. Even though this is a practice, and every time I step into the hot room I’m repeating the exact same postures in the exact same order, today’s class is the most difficult I can recall in months.  I am struggling to get through, uncharacteristically taking a break to lie down in the middle of standing separate head to knee pose.  All I can think is I don’t want to work so hard anymore, not at yoga, maybe not at anything. 

I’ve spent my entire life trying to prove I am not a sloth.  It doesn’t matter that I can’t remember where I ever came up with the idea I deserve the label.  Maybe it’s a product of my contempt for the painful shyness I’ve slowly learned to accept and manage over the course of my adult life.  I have never been afraid of the work, just afraid to put myself out there.  And so I go the extra mile, ensure I’m extra prepared because when I do speak up, I need to be certain my facts are correct, my thoughts measured and logical.  I wonder if this compulsion to prove my fortitude has just worn me out over time.

There is no doubt adulting is a lot of work, in fact there are times when it feels like a chore. It requires, among other things, discipline, maturity, accountability and consistency to fulfill our obligations and keep our dependents safe and sound. It means doing the right thing when no one is looking, because our kids are looking.  They are always looking. It can seem like our lives are not our own.

But adulting also brings autonomy, the privilege of choice and a delicious freedom to express ourselves. We get to live life on our own terms, to create a sanctuary we call home that may look vastly different than where we came from. Adulting brings a tremendous amount of joy if we can allow ourselves to experience it.  I’m taking steps to not only recognize it when it shows up in ordinary time, but to seek it out and allow some space to invite it in.  Because we should be able to carry out our responsibilities and care for the ones we love without taking everything so seriously.  Adulting shouldn’t always be hard.     

Of course I will go back to yoga in a day or two.  I will continue to push myself. And I’ll also be a little kinder to myself.  It’s hard to compare yourself to others in the hot room; you’ll fall out of the posture the moment you take your eyes off yourself. I’ve been called out by an instructor as the strongest person in the room. Others must be allowing themselves the breaks I can’t seem to grant myself. I decide the world will not end if I choose to contribute not only to the energy in the room, but also the humanity.  

I wish I could I tell my son the challenges of adulting will pass, that it’s only a phase or a rite of passage.  But the reality is adulting is demanding at its onset, and continues to play a refrain throughout the course of any life. What I can encourage him to do is to be grateful for his independence, and to seek out and embrace the joy and solace there for the taking.  He’s on a journey every one of us on the planet, no matter who or where you are, finds rocky at intervals along the way.  Sometimes it’s just helpful to know we’re not alone.

Portaging

I’m standing in the basement early Saturday morning, watching a thin sheet of clear rain water creep across the basement floor.  While I packed as much as I could in plastic containers knowing my precious cargo would be waylaid, mooring in a basement for an indeterminate period of time before reaching its final destination, it is inevitable that some contents end up in cardboard boxes. I’ve been here before, paralyzed by impending destruction I feel powerless to avert.

This situation is top of mind in the past few weeks as countless people across the nation engulfed in hurricanes and fires are making these choices with a magnitude exponential to mine.  It’s the paralysis that consumes us, the need to wrest with split-second decisions about which possessions are most important. There is only time and space to carry the precious few. How is one to decide?

We become comfortable surrounded by our stuff, symbols of safety, security and stability.  Every item we choose to possess says something about who we are, what we do with our time, what is important to us, what inspires us.  Yet life is full of transformations asking us to shed our stuff.  Sometimes willfully and with great excitement, other times with resigned submission, bitter disappointment or hopeless incomprehension. 

Christina Baker Kline, the author of the current selection my book club is reading, “Orphan Train”, weaves into her story the history of the Wabanakis Indians who traveled across the land carrying their canoes and possessions from river to lake to sea.  As a people, they knew how to travel light. The transient characters in her present day story recount the choices they make:  “What did you choose to bring with you to the next place?  What did you leave behind?”   

As I prepared to move this summer I set the goal to thresh out only those pieces of clothing I wear, the dishes and cookware I actually use, the artwork I absolutely adore.  I found myself in a state of perpetual culling; multiple rounds of sorting up until the moment I locked the door behind me for the last time. What surprises me is this winnowing continues, even after the move.  Standing in the basement imagining the worst inches of rising water could wipe out, I go through the mental game of contemplating what I will choose to bring with me and what I will leave behind. Is this the universe telling me I have more to let go? 

Thankfully there are no casualties; he is outside in the torrential downpour assessing the condition of gutters and drains.  He quickly decides the tired sump pump is the culprit and in a heartbeat he and his plumber are replacing it with a turbo-charged model bringing newfound energy, upchucking with comforting regularity water laden with leaves and debris. I make myself useful by getting a pedicure and buying sandwiches.  I am grateful I have a partner who believes in playing to our strengths.

While this crisis never comes to fruition, I’m left pondering the questions:   “What do you choose to bring with you to the next place?  What do you leave behind?”   On the surface I’ve chosen to bring a wardrobe dominated by black shirts, kitchen cabinets full of white bakeware and Starbucks “You Are Here” mugs documenting our travel to cities across the globe, while leaving at the curb tattered furniture, broken appliances and electronics, paperwork documenting a past which no longer serves me.

But it’s about so much more than the stuff. I am changing homes, and entering into a new phase of life:  Freedom I haven’t seen in over twenty years.  I leave behind the overwhelming responsibility of single-parenthood, the pressures of being the sole breadwinner, the tether to the nest, the solace of my screened-in porch, the full expression of my onlyness. I bring with me my unwavering love for my boys, wisdom and patience to guide them from a new vantage point, worry for their safety and wellbeing, the means and travel companion to sate my wanderlust, the skills and desire to be a good partner. 

As we move from place to place it’s inevitable that we will leave behind some cherished gifts we wish we could take with us, and bring with us some worn baggage we wish we could leave behind. There is one constant; however:  We always bring with us our true selves.  And if we believe we possess the power and resilience to adapt to new situations and make everything new again we can be happy wherever we are.

Requiem

I am somewhat surprised by how saddened this American girl is by the passing of Tom Petty.  I can’t think of another artist who spends more time nor owns more selections on my playlist of favorites.  In fact he is on my playlist before the word playlist is even coined, for those who remember back to the days of mix tapes.

He writes exquisitely and succinctly. He speaks to me at the pivotal moments, those crossroads laden with emotion and uncertainty, able to be both a soothing balm and smoldering bomb. It’s as if behind his famous grin lies the confident assurance we’re only scratching the surface as we sway to his music; we will someday understand the sage messages his lyrics hide in plain sight.  We just need to live a little.

And for one desperate moment there

He crept back in her memory

God it's so painful when something that's so close

Is still so far out of reach

Slow to learn my lesson, I commit acts of serial pining, always incessantly, for the favor of unrequited loves who seem to slip through my fingers. I come to know exactly the chimera he’s describing, exactly how it feels to be utterly convinced you are on the brink of grasping something that in reality was never even remotely near enough to touch.

The waiting is the hardest part

Every day you see one more card

You take it on faith, you take it to the heart

The waiting is the hardest part

Blessed as a vessel for the creation of human beings, I find no better summation for the toils of pregnancy than The Waiting. Under all of its glorious discomfort lies an insatiable yearning to meet this precious individual I’m instantly and infinitely cleaved to with an unmatched ferocity. Time never moved so slowly.

She's gonna listen to her heart

It's gonna tell her what to do

She might need a lot of loving

But she don't need you

Who hasn’t woken up to the realization you’ve stayed too long in a relationship for fear the ache of loneliness is so unbearable you’ll tolerate snippets of affection from the wrong person?   We all need a lot of loving and, sometimes, the self-confidence to believe we deserve it and the courage to free ourselves from everything we know to find it.

Square one, my slate is clear

Rest your head on me, my dear

It took a world of trouble, took a world of tears

Took a long time... to get back here

She tells me I’ve always been a free spirit.  Until this moment I haven’t truly realized how much of myself I suppressed and sacrificed to be who I thought someone else wanted me to be.  There is no journey more powerful or worthwhile than the one that takes you back to yourself. 

I need only to hear a handful of notes before I know he’s playing A Woman in Love. The anticipation is hypnotic, intoxicating.  It’s like this for me with so many of his songs. I could (and do) listen over and over again. It seems he’ll never stop draggin’ my heart around.