In My Own Skin
on being ever thankful for another day just as I am
Do you ever stop and just stand there wondering…why am I still here? On the ever-spinning grand ferris wheel of life, with all the ups and downs, and considering all of those who have had to step off to make room for the new ones to jump on… why am I still here, on the ride? Maybe that’s too vague. I will try to explain it better as I go along. I will just say, right now, that I feel this question more than ever.
A couple of years ago now, my sweetheart and I sat completely arrested by a Netflix series called The Last Kingdom. I was surprised at how much I looked forward to it each evening because I am usually not one for such violent entertainment. This show was different. First of all, I loved the characters. Some of them haunt me to this day. I also loved how historically accurate it was, depicting the time of Alfred the Great as he tried to unify the kingdoms that would eventually become England, and against all odds of constant and fierce Viking invasions. I was so mesmerised that I watched the entire seven seasons twice. This was the story of my people, where much of my ancestry originates, between the Saxons and the Vikings, the two main players in my own DNA. I felt it in my bones, this story. When it was all over I was left with many revelations and even more questions, but the biggest thread that bound it all together was this one epiphany: it is a bloody miracle, literally, that I am standing here at all, that my bloodline survived to allow me to be born. Life was almost impossible to survive between pestilence, famine, plague and war, and there I sat because someone in my bloodline made it through the 9th century (and of course eons before that), long enough to reproduce and then repeat that process over and over again for many centuries more. Miracle, indeed.
I have had my share of dances with mortality during my sixty years. Cancer, very serious staph infections, other serious health issues, a body covered in scars from many necessary surgeries, and the hardest of all being the death of my first son when he was three days old. Then there are the people I have known and loved, both family and friends, who have left this earth far too soon, a couple while I held their hands, and sometimes those loved ones left us in such seemingly unfair ways. No one ever said that life would be fair, though. Instead, these touches with death have bolstered me with a scaffold of reality that keeps my expectations mostly in check, and now and then reminds me of how precious are those most ordinary moments of a day. Sometimes I am reminded of a dear friend who has passed, and I am at a loss to understand why it was her, and not me, as we both had cancer that was treated and then gone…and yet hers came back and with a vengeance, Why her, not me? Why any stranger on the street, and not me?
As often as I have confronted this question, I never come upon an answer. It’s a random mystery, like life itself. There is no rhyme or reason. I do not believe in any God who would choose a child to die, over an old woman on any given day. I do not believe in destiny or fate. No, it is a random lightning strike, over and over again. Every time I confront these questions I eventually come to the same conclusion… live and let live and try to be kinder and do the most with the time you are fortunate enough to have. No what ifs, just what can I dos—and give many many sighs of gratitude all along the way. Many many many. I think, though, that one of the lessons it has taken me the longest to learn (that I am still trying to learn) is to be okay, even grateful, for exactly who I am, acknowledging my huge flaws and imperfections and still trying to do the best I can with what I have right now, today, and not put life on hold until things are just a little more how I would like them to be.
I came across a quote recently that really struck me as some pretty good words to live by. They were written by author Beth Kempton:
Less stuff, more soul. Less hustle, more ease. Less chaos, more calm. Less mass consumption, more unique creations. Less complexity, more clarity. Less judgement, more forgiveness. Less bravado, more truth. Less resistance, more resilience. Less control, more surrender. Less head, more heart.
Every single example of duality she offered felt like a prayer to me, a litany of challenges to help me do a little better during my daily existence. If you had to pick one, which would you work on today, right now? Today I am feeling less judgement, more forgiveness…for myself. You see, my sweetheart took me on the loveliest weekend getaway. We are actually on our way home right now, stopped at a café in Canandaigua, New York, to get some of our writing work done. He took me to Cooperstown for a special game at Doubleday Field celebrating the Negro Leagues and also a visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame for a new exhibition, The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball. To say that Rick is a simply a baseball fan would be like saying Paris is an okay place to get a croissant. A leviathan understatement. This was a special big deal for him, and he wanted me to be there, too. We also met two dear friends, and Rick’s brother, sister-in-law and nephew, and one of his nephew’s friends. I was so looking forward to it in the weeks leading up, and checked the weather daily in the days before we were to leave to see what was in store.
Why check the weather so much? I am as heat intolerant as Rick is a lifelong baseball fan. I am also claustrophobic (especially in indoor spaces with crowds of people) and have fairly intense vertigo in specific situations (including bleachers where you can see through to the ground below). These issues have been a dreaded part of me for years. I am embarrassed by them. When these things about me show up, I wish I was just about anyone else. I mean, who wilts and develops welts and a rash when it’s humid and 70 degrees? Who avoids and dreads the most joyful days of outside summer activities? Who has a near panic attack while waiting in line in a windowless room with many other people to see an exhibit at a museum? Who has to grab on to the nearest person because she is about to pass out from climbing a few rows of bleachers at the baseball diamond? Who has the same experience over again every time she has to stand up and let someone pass by to get in and out of her row on the bleachers? I do. Your friendly writer here. Me. Every. Single. Time. And yet there I was, expecting I would be different this go around, wishfully thinking I could be there and enjoy it all just like every one else. You know…like a normal person.
Of course, that was not what happened at all. I left the exhibit at the Hall of Fame while we were still standing in line to see it (it was crowded, slow-moving, low ceilings, windowless, and hot) to go downstairs and sit in a open room by a window and wait for everyone else…while they enjoyed it. I left the baseball game within ten minutes of making it to our seats that were in the glaring 80-degree sun and higher up in the crowded bleachers. Once Rick escorted me safely back down to terra firma, (I get incredibly dizzy) I went back to the hotel, drank a lot of water, took a cool shower, and slept for almost three hours until every one else was done with their amazing fun and special day. I mean, they even saw Willie Mays. I just laid there imagining how everyone was thinking what a refrigerated flower I am, and how my sweetheart would once again have to have a great time without me. Yes, I felt like I have for so long—a disappointment. The missing spoke. The very odd woman out. And then I received a text of just four words:
Love you so much.
I responded with an “I’m so sorry I am such a mess.” and then another four words magically arrived:
But you’re my mess.
I had a little cry and tried to fall asleep, hugging his hotel pillow.
Now I had two questions. Why am I so lucky to still be here, and how could I be so lucky to have landed in this part of my life with someone who truly loves me for exactly who I am, who understands me so well, and when am I going to finally stop feeling like a huge disappointment and start accepting myself and all of my imperfections? Okay, that was three questions.
Maybe part of my struggle is spending so many years with someone for whom I was never good enough. That tends to take a psychological toll that really never fully heals. I am also smarter than that. I know my worth at the end of the day and that person never ever deserved me. I know that with every cell in my body now. And yet, I continue to feel pretty awful about myself when I just don’t fit into the ways things are supposed to be—and that is entirely on me. It’s time for that to stop.
Why am I still here? Luck of the draw. What am I going to try to do about all of these feelings of inadequacies? Make the most of what I have been given, what I have learned, with fewer what ifs and more what can I dos.
Less stuff, more soul. Less hustle, more ease. Less chaos, more calm. Less mass consumption, more unique creations. Less complexity, more clarity. Less judgement, more forgiveness. Less bravado, more truth. Less resistance, more resilience. Less control, more surrender. Less head, more heart. ~Beth Kempton
Yeah, more of the mores.
I want more of the mores. And I am so glad to still be here.
If you are still reading after this long, rambling mess of an essay, I would love to know your experience of that existential question, “Why am I still here?”
to build bridges.
sometimes, to be a bridge.
hug Rick for me.
The real question here is "does Rick has a brother, is he single and when are you going to introduce us"
Jokes aside, thanks as usual for such an open and yet respectfully, elegantly boundaried piece.
In the last 10 years I have struggled more with "why is this happening" than with "why am I still around", but I feel the answer to both questions lies within the deep folds of those Universal Truths we spend many lives experiencing but never fully grasping. At times (when it's really quiet within, and really painful/beautiful outside - and even more when beauty is so intense it almost hurts) I feel like I can vaguely catch a glimpse of their magnitude, of their blink-and-you'll-miss-it evanescence. And then Earth calles me back to herself, and here I am, daily and mundane as perhaps I'm meant to be. Being there for all those who are also still around.
Being held but those who aren't.