39 Revolutions
It's coming up on my birthday soon. I'll be entering the final year of my thirties and as I expected, I can't help but look back over the last decade of my life and all the changes that have happened. Decade by decade they roll past me.
I can remember being so excited to turn ten. Double digits, a momentous birthday for me. I was awarded new freedoms, and given new responsibilities.
Up to 20 was growth with school and puberty. Idyllic childhood, so many golden memories. Life had not yet shown it's uglier facades to me until I turned 19. My high school sweetheart shattered my heart into hundreds of pieces, my grandmother sank deeper into Alzheimer's, and I fell out with friends over the smallest slights. I would spend the next two decades trying to recapture some element of the happiness and wholeness I felt. The sense of irrefutable belonging I had in my childhood.
My twenties were marked with tragedy in a string from which I thought I'd never recover. It began with a man who found me broken and devastated over my first love and used all those weaknesses against me. It was a lesson in learning that I cannot rely on others to fix what is broken, I have to heal those things on my own, or else I give my power willingly to someone else and risk losing myself.
That all ended with the death of my brother and the earth-shattering realization that I was not immune from the cold hands of death. I began to see it everywhere. In the barrel of the guns he kept in the house and threatened me with, or else peeking out from the inky black shadows my headlights cast in the dark on back country roads. But life did not reward me as it should have in Hollywood scripts.
I lost everything, including my job, and with my defeated tail-tucked walk I kept just the smallest ember of hope that maybe one day I'd find my place again. I met Matt here, and he bore witness to the rest of my 20s in a front row seat.
I packed all belongings into a duffel bag to strike out into the world at 26. By 28, very shortly after my birthday, I had to return to Michigan to help care for my family. We fell into abject poverty, and I felt as far from my goal as ever. I began, finally after years of holding on, to give up hope.
At 29 I broke up with Matt. It was, in my opinion, as amicable as possible. I loved him, I adored him, but I wanted a future. I wanted something solid under my feet that I could count on, and I was not interested in spending my 30s just trying to find real love. I had expected that he would nod, agree and part ways.
Instead, by my 30th we were engaged and planning a real future. We lived in Boston then, for the next seven years. I won't insult my time there and say it was so awful that I have no pleasant memories. Our first apartment was cozy, and we adopted out cats. I have wonderful memories of our wedding and our lives blending together, and some experiences that even if I ended up parting ways with those I made them with, still burn as a happy spotlight on their own.
But I searched and searched for my place of belonging. For the reason why I had fought so hard and gone through all of these struggles. I never regret my life with Matthew, but I knew that Boston wasn't where I was meant to be. And so, right around my 37th birthday, we made the decision to move.
And South Carolina has been good to me since then. The growing sense of belonging began the moment my feet touched the soil here. All those long, lonely nights where I held on to hope like a life ring, and all those days in therapy to get my head back were suddenly forming the road I could see that lead me here.
To my promise land. My heaven.
I'm sitting on the tailgate of my truck in his driveway, watching the hawks and vultures wheel high overhead. The pond is so green and lush already, the wildlife chirping all around. It's a quiet little street with the noise of the nearby highway just a little more than a quiet din.
In the house, Matt and S are discussing trees and birds in their great picture window. The kids are settled into their afternoons and T is around somewhere. It's a moment to reflect while I burn up one of the cigarettes from my anxiety pack.
I'm here. It comes so simply, so effortlessly that I almost don't realize it. All of me is here, in one place. And I feel like there's a Jewel sized space here, carved out just for me. A place that is mine and mine alone.
We had all gone out the night before, and I confess that I was overly worried about it. How would I ever be able to handle everything with my emotions so raw? How could I expose myself like that?
But to the bar I went, diving into alcohol and cigarettes as a coping mechanism for anxiety. It's a thin balance, one I don't like to use often, but effective. Instead of walling myself up, I tear them all down. Let it bleed if it must, but let them in. Burn so brightly and so confidently that no one can see your weaknesses. It's not a facade or a lie, but like supercharging. Pour every ounce of energy and thought and will into kindness, into conversation and charisma. Turn anxiety out into the world as energy to share.
Like a firecracker it will light up a room. Like a firecracker it will burn out fast and leave behind a cloud of sulfur and smoke. It cannot be done a lot, and the immediate aftermath is to be drained and raw again. But this time I had them both here and I could risk the drain. I could trust that they'd both have hands out to catch me at the end. And they did.
But while I was burning, lit up and shining there came a moment. As I stood outside the bar and glanced in the plate glass windows I could see this amazing group of people. My loves, Matt and T and S, my friends, a little piece of my community. And inside me rose a well of deep love and connection. Belonging. Home.
I had found my home. My place. Not in walls, not in an address, but in my heart. In this place, in this time. With these people.
This is my homecoming. This is my great revelation. I will turn 39 soon and conclude this decade before 40. But first, I will come home.
I can remember being so excited to turn ten. Double digits, a momentous birthday for me. I was awarded new freedoms, and given new responsibilities.
Up to 20 was growth with school and puberty. Idyllic childhood, so many golden memories. Life had not yet shown it's uglier facades to me until I turned 19. My high school sweetheart shattered my heart into hundreds of pieces, my grandmother sank deeper into Alzheimer's, and I fell out with friends over the smallest slights. I would spend the next two decades trying to recapture some element of the happiness and wholeness I felt. The sense of irrefutable belonging I had in my childhood.
My twenties were marked with tragedy in a string from which I thought I'd never recover. It began with a man who found me broken and devastated over my first love and used all those weaknesses against me. It was a lesson in learning that I cannot rely on others to fix what is broken, I have to heal those things on my own, or else I give my power willingly to someone else and risk losing myself.
That all ended with the death of my brother and the earth-shattering realization that I was not immune from the cold hands of death. I began to see it everywhere. In the barrel of the guns he kept in the house and threatened me with, or else peeking out from the inky black shadows my headlights cast in the dark on back country roads. But life did not reward me as it should have in Hollywood scripts.
I lost everything, including my job, and with my defeated tail-tucked walk I kept just the smallest ember of hope that maybe one day I'd find my place again. I met Matt here, and he bore witness to the rest of my 20s in a front row seat.
I packed all belongings into a duffel bag to strike out into the world at 26. By 28, very shortly after my birthday, I had to return to Michigan to help care for my family. We fell into abject poverty, and I felt as far from my goal as ever. I began, finally after years of holding on, to give up hope.
At 29 I broke up with Matt. It was, in my opinion, as amicable as possible. I loved him, I adored him, but I wanted a future. I wanted something solid under my feet that I could count on, and I was not interested in spending my 30s just trying to find real love. I had expected that he would nod, agree and part ways.
Instead, by my 30th we were engaged and planning a real future. We lived in Boston then, for the next seven years. I won't insult my time there and say it was so awful that I have no pleasant memories. Our first apartment was cozy, and we adopted out cats. I have wonderful memories of our wedding and our lives blending together, and some experiences that even if I ended up parting ways with those I made them with, still burn as a happy spotlight on their own.
But I searched and searched for my place of belonging. For the reason why I had fought so hard and gone through all of these struggles. I never regret my life with Matthew, but I knew that Boston wasn't where I was meant to be. And so, right around my 37th birthday, we made the decision to move.
And South Carolina has been good to me since then. The growing sense of belonging began the moment my feet touched the soil here. All those long, lonely nights where I held on to hope like a life ring, and all those days in therapy to get my head back were suddenly forming the road I could see that lead me here.
To my promise land. My heaven.
I'm sitting on the tailgate of my truck in his driveway, watching the hawks and vultures wheel high overhead. The pond is so green and lush already, the wildlife chirping all around. It's a quiet little street with the noise of the nearby highway just a little more than a quiet din.
In the house, Matt and S are discussing trees and birds in their great picture window. The kids are settled into their afternoons and T is around somewhere. It's a moment to reflect while I burn up one of the cigarettes from my anxiety pack.
I'm here. It comes so simply, so effortlessly that I almost don't realize it. All of me is here, in one place. And I feel like there's a Jewel sized space here, carved out just for me. A place that is mine and mine alone.
We had all gone out the night before, and I confess that I was overly worried about it. How would I ever be able to handle everything with my emotions so raw? How could I expose myself like that?
But to the bar I went, diving into alcohol and cigarettes as a coping mechanism for anxiety. It's a thin balance, one I don't like to use often, but effective. Instead of walling myself up, I tear them all down. Let it bleed if it must, but let them in. Burn so brightly and so confidently that no one can see your weaknesses. It's not a facade or a lie, but like supercharging. Pour every ounce of energy and thought and will into kindness, into conversation and charisma. Turn anxiety out into the world as energy to share.
Like a firecracker it will light up a room. Like a firecracker it will burn out fast and leave behind a cloud of sulfur and smoke. It cannot be done a lot, and the immediate aftermath is to be drained and raw again. But this time I had them both here and I could risk the drain. I could trust that they'd both have hands out to catch me at the end. And they did.
But while I was burning, lit up and shining there came a moment. As I stood outside the bar and glanced in the plate glass windows I could see this amazing group of people. My loves, Matt and T and S, my friends, a little piece of my community. And inside me rose a well of deep love and connection. Belonging. Home.
I had found my home. My place. Not in walls, not in an address, but in my heart. In this place, in this time. With these people.
This is my homecoming. This is my great revelation. I will turn 39 soon and conclude this decade before 40. But first, I will come home.
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