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| The "Advice" Booth! |
This morning I woke up with an epiphany. The final piece of information I didn’t know or understand that I needed in order to complete Sorry Bob!
I started the book in 2013-2014 when I thought I was dying and was reflecting on how I just kept screwing up my life, and basically, the screwups happened firstly because I was heavily influenced by the books/movies/tv and the culture I was immersed in at the time.
Which led to pregnancy and marriage at 18, followed shortly by divorce and custody battles and once I was behind financially, it was always a struggle. So when, in 2013/14 doctors agreed something was wrong (blood work, tests were off) they just didn’t know what. And each doctor had a different medicine which usually sent me to the ER which is what led to my frustration with myself and life itself and I started feeling…hopeless.
How did I end up here, I wondered at the time. Every road I’d taken seemed a mistake. Even worse, I had deeply failed to give my children any sort of life I had envisioned when I was young and thought of family: stability, love, a home base they could thrive from.
So I did what I do best: I started researching where I might have went wrong and often, I thought I’d found the answers, but, it just never felt…complete. Something was always missing.
What was missing was figuring out who I really was, because there was so much noise, so much distraction. Trying to fit in and belong and be loved and accepted. Because, don’t we all want that? Even if we think we don’t want to belong to “the popular group” – we still want to belong somewhere. Even if it’s only a group of five people. Even if it’s only one other person (you and me against the world, kid!).
But when I woke up this morning, 20 days into the day I left Pennsylvania to tour the South, places I’ve
And the past few days I’ve been confused…so many people (especially in Fairhope) have been put in my path on my journey and I’ve wondered, “What does it mean? What is the lesson here? WHY?”
And I put off working on the book. It’s overwhelming. So many different versions, chapters, “best bits” “keep this” “trash this.” It’s never ending and always evolving.
I started out writing fiction all those years ago (honestly a writer ever since I was about eight simply because I was so bored – we are talking 1970’s – 1980’s – kids who say they are bored now just have NO IDEA!) and my teachers always encouraged that path for me. But, I am adventurous and an extrovert. I fully believe we are born with certain traits. An examination of my life proves that. My children also prove that, they were born with their personalities from day one!
But as important and fulfilling as writing could be, I also needed approval and validation ( ironically, I am also a person who will speak up and say unpopular things and tell the truth…which has also cost me along with the personal mistakes I’ve made).
My fiction always had a thread of personal transformation and what appears to be magic, but the magic was only a talisman, the real magic, in the end, was belief in yourself.
And then, 2013-2014 when my health started to take a nosedive (I’m thinking now, it was perhaps my body reacting to living a life not by my design, struggling to be content and happy and making choices based on security and comfort and conforming when that is the opposite of what my soul and spirit have always been), I realized that my life had never really been my own, because I was so deeply influenced by culture. I wanted to help other people realize and understand these “happiness hijackers” as I called them. My first iteration of the book was titled: “Something That May Change Your Life!”
And agents, well, they were interested, but they told me I had to pick a lane. Fiction or this self help book. I’m thankful now that I couldn’t pick a lane and they ended up not picking me (well, am I thankful? I’d have loved to have made an early career being a writer, it certainly would have helped financially and emotionally, but maybe I never would have landed on the self awareness or the information I discovered that I feel will absolutely resonate and help other people!). Or I might have figured it out sooner too. Let’s be honest. I’m just trying to convince myself the struggles all had meaning. The fact is…who knows? But I am thankful that this morning, I woke up and that final piece I’d been searching for found me before the sun had the coffee brewing.
During this journey, I found myself in the most beautiful church in Charleston that should have been closed but was open. I only knew this because two people slipped in and I followed. It as so stunning with the stained glass and the high ceilings. The reverence. I sobbed.
Then I was moved to tears by another church in Savannah. I promise you I’m not usually so emotional. I could feel the history in Charleston and Beaufort. A transcendence I can’t even name. It felt like home. So many people and places have been put on my path and I will be writing about them all, they all deserve their own chapters.
When I arrived in Fairhope, I met Lila, 94 years young who promptly invited me to her cottage to sell
me her book. And then Sandy, as a result of an obstacle (that I’m grateful for because I never would have met Sandy) who is steeped in her faith. I was so moved by her stories, again, I became emotional and tearful. Am I being called to religion? Me? The girl that went to Catholic School and got an F in religion for “asking too many questions.” It’s not so much that I have resistance to organized religion, it’s more that they have resistance to me. Because it is in my nature to question.
I’d love, love, to “give it over to God” and many times, I do “give it over to God” but for me, God is in nature, in the universe. Stories are what make religion real. Stories are how we connect. But I also love the philosophy of Aristotle. Virtues. Flourishing. Just as I’m drawn to the South, I am drawn to the philosophy of Aristotle.
I, like so many of you, want to know the answers to life…or maybe not so much to life, it’s really too big for me to wrap my little brain about, but how do I fit in to this life is more of a question that I might be able to figure out.
How do I walk thru it in such a way that when the storms happen, I can help myself and those around me to survive? How do I become my best self? And what I landed on this morning, this question haunting me, is that I was moved by the churches because they were so beautiful. A respite. A reminder of the beauty and art that is possible in life. Of people joining together because they want to be better! They want to be the best versions of themselves!
And it’s about getting thru the suffering in life, the storms that are caused by nature and sadly, by people, because we are flawed. And many of our flaws have taken hold of us because we’ve been influenced and distracted, especially by things, ideas, that seem like they are trying to help, but… It’s also about belonging.
Belonging…this is the crux of it all. It’s what I deeply long for, but this morning, I woke up and realized no matter how I frame this book, or my work, I’m never going to be loved by everyone. I’m never going to fit in everywhere. I might never find “my tribe” and that’s okay. I like. It’s not okay. It makes me sad, but this is what I have to accept because I have tried my whole life to fit in. With disastrous results! Hopefully someday I will find a place to land where my optimism and creativity and the kaleidoscope lens I view life in will at least be respected, if not ever embraced.
And the South is funny that way. They are steeped in tradition. But also, the places I’ve travelled are also steeped in friendliness and manners. They are welcoming. They are story tellers. I am a story teller. No one has time for my stories in Pennsylvania! It is rush rush rush! Stop chitchatting lady, you’re holding up the line! And if you don’t have a masters degree and a drive an Audi with a coexist bumper sticker, well, here’s some crayons for you to doodle with in the corner (okay, not everyone is like that in Pa, but the area I lived in…was not very welcoming to colorful free thinkers).
Also, Pennsylvania is cold. I loathe the cold and always have. I left Rapid City SD at age 18, weeks after high school graduation. I hated the small area. I hated the scenery. I left a note for my parents (oh, I was a WILD child and wild because my parents did not give me the tools I needed to understand how culture was influencing and distracting me – because my parents grew up in a different culture, they just didn’t know, I love them and am not blaming them!). I hopped a Greyhound (that’s a bus line for those uppity people in Pa who might not realize it’s a busline, not an animal) and went to my grandmothers apartment (my grandmother, also very entrenched in the Catholic religion) and the plan was live in Pa for a year, gain residency, so I could go to Penn State and be a lawyer (I know, right?!) and pay instate tuition. Then my rotten exboyfriend followed me out there, vowed to change his abusive ways, I got pregnant, he didn’t change, and then, circumstances and security and wanting to be part of my children's life kept me tethered to Pennsylvania. But I always dreamed about the South.
This is not to say I didn’t have a good life. I became a paramedic. I had a very interesting life, but it was never, ever, of my own making. It was more…well, I’m stuck, how do I pivot? I also made really bad choices in men. Some were just horrible, and some were good men, just not my soul mate. In fact, maybe I’m not built for partnership. I enjoy being on my own. Listening to my music. Not being judged or made fun of or tolerated. I am probably hard to love not because I’m mean or unloveable, but because I’m curious and optimistic and also, cynical. I do not follow blindly. Not a sports team, not my family, hell, not even myself.
If you made it this far into my writing of the day, thank you! I’m excited and grateful that the missing piece arrived. For once, waking up at 3:30 was a blessing, not a curse.
I’m still going to write about all the wonderful people, the kismet, the serendipity, the experiences, on this trip. But, I’m so grateful, and so thankful, that on this 26th day of July, twenty days into my Southern journey, here in Fairhope, Alabama, the last place I had mapped out, the place everyone on the East coast from PA to GA, asked, “Why are you going to Fairhope?” I had no idea really. I’d read about the Pages and Palette bookstore and it seemed like a very cool place (it is!) and Alabama, well, it is the true South. And Southern Living magazine would mention it’s one of the best small towns in the South. Artistic, bohemian, and full of charm. The wonderful people of Fairhope would like me to remind you, if you do come down/over, you are welcome, but please bring your manners!
Would I have landed on my last and final puzzle piece somewhere else? Maybe? But I think it’s a collection of people and places I’ve met along the way…and constantly asking, “but what does it mean?” and the universe woke me up this morning and said, “Girl, get your fingers tapping, because this is the answer to the question you’ve been asking.”
In Fairhope!
How fitting.
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