10/10/19 — The End of The Beginning

It has been a WEEK. My emotions have been ALL over the place. It started with a general sense of malaise. That feeling that something’s just off. Even though nothing really is. Nothing is really wrong… But somehow nothing seems right.

Then it evolved — or maybe devolved is a better way to describe it — into complete frustration and anger that left me pounding my yoga mat over and over and screaming expletives into the air before falling over into tears on my bedroom floor… All due to a shitty WIFI connection that kept interrupting the yoga practice I was trying to do. So much for Zen.

Thank God I was able to turn to my friend, Grace, about having “dropped my basket” as she likes to put it. Great reframe from “losing your shit.” She offered wonderful words of comfort and support, and I realized something needed to get out of me. So good, there it was. Done. Post yoga mat breakdown I felt relieved. Time to move on.

But nearly immediately, I slipped back into the blahs that began the week.

Then came a state of irritability so repulsive to me that I actually made a list in my journal titled “Reasons I’m an Asshole”, the highlight of which were the dozens of eyerolls I issued during travel Thursday.

• At the Lyft driver whose car smelled like a fast food restaurant and who didn’t know where she was going because she wasn’t “from around here”. Really? Who is driving a Lyft around Des Moines, IA that isn’t from around here?!
• Then at the woman in the airport bathroom asking if the airport had WIFI and how she could connect to it. Well, ma’am, how do you generally connect to WIFI anywhere else in the world? And no, please don’t shove that tablet in my general direction hoping I’ll do it for you. Thank God for the kindhearted stewardess who shielded me — and the woman — from having to deal with what would certainly had been an interaction that ended with me in a full-on meltdown.
• Then at the young twenty-something’s carrying their damn metal water bottles and asking the sole barista at the sole coffee shop in the DSM airport to fill them. Excuse me kids, do you not see that water fountain ten fucking feet away? And can you not see there are real people — actual productive members of society — trying to get some fucking coffee right now?! For real.

So, I wrote the “Reasons I’m an Asshole” list. Then I wrote the “Reasons I’m Human” and the “Reasons I’m a Good Person” lists. Those lists weren’t nearly as fun or satisfying, but I thought that’s what Lissa Rankin would tell me to do, and I’ve been immersed in her book, Anatomy of a Calling, for the past ten days, so I obeyed the imaginary orders she issued me.

Now, the past week hasn’t been solely me acting like an adolescent. Punctuating these epic episodes of selfish childishness have also been moments of extreme sadness, loneliness, compassion, and empathy. Feelings I experienced — at times endured — frequently in my adolescence and young adulthood. Before I armored up and got scrip for Zoloft.

• Monday evening it was the realization that I really don’t have any way to even come close to understanding what one of my good friends is going through, yet I’ve been trying to issue her advice and quietly judging her for “poor decisions”. That’s an eye-opener. I apologized the next day.
• On Wednesday night it was the heartache of missing my sweet Louie, who passed a year ago December. And of missing my less-than-sweet-but-nevertheless-my-baby, Bacon, who has been spending the last week and a half with my ex.
• At the gym watching CBS This Morning, it was the story of the new Sesame Street character, Karli. Karli is staying with her “for now family” because her mother has “an adult problem and needs adults to take care of her.” Her mother has an addiction problem. “Why doesn’t she just quit?” Elmo asks. I literally almost started bawling right there on the stair climber.
• The first flight of my trip Thursday, it was the beautifully bright-eyed, foreign young woman (possibly in her late teens and certainly no older than 21) in the seat next to me who wore the most charming coral dress, carried a pink handbag (not too small, not too big) embellished with large fake gems, and giggled at a continuous stream of social media posts in an app I could not name. Her thick head of dark ringlets, full, glossed lips, and twinkly eyes simply screamed, “I’m here, world! And you should be excited!”

Fuck. I do not know what’s going on inside me these days. And I don’t know what’s going to come of it.

All week I’ve been trying to pinpoint the source of the emotional tides I’m experiencing. Is it Bacon’s absence? Maybe I’m really stressed about the multiple work projects I have going on? Part of it could be the chronic lower back pain I’m having. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t seen my therapist in several weeks? I’m spending way too much time in my own head, that’s for sure. I’m probably worn out from all the self-development and completely woozy from the woo-woo of it all.

I’m doing all this in my own head, of course. In the vacuum of my own perspective. Finally, I decide to open up to Matt and tell him what’s been going on. He offers me an observation that blows my mind. “Dané, you’re not really good with things ending.”

“What?” I ask.

“Remember when the MBA program was over? How hard it was for you? Or when you left OSF? Or when you relinquished your contract with Refound? Or when we sold the house on Harmon?”

Insert stunned silence followed by a really deep sigh.

“Dané, you’ve loved this program and the people in it, and this is the last weekend. You’re sad. It’s okay.”

I am. I’m saaaaaad.

And I’m scared.

I’m scared of what comes next.

I’m scared, because I no longer have an excuse to just keep “going with the flow” (which I’m really good at) and taking whatever work comes my way.

I’ve been shown that there is more for me to contribute by being more deliberate in not only my work, but in the way I live my life.

This program marks the beginning of my new way of living. And now it’s coming to an end, and it’s sad, but it’s also glorious. A moment in time when I can be both joyful and sad and embrace both emotions as I move into the next phase of this beautiful, continuous unfolding of life.