How Did I Get Here? (working through "The Here Process")

"How did I get here?" 

I have heard loads of people ask this question. I have asked myself this question often in my life, particularly when I was walking through my separation and divorce. How did I get from the point of building a life with someone to the point of dismantling that life that we had built? How did I get here?

I am always only here. Here, where my feet are. Here, where my life is. I am here, never there. Once I get there, there becomes here and, in turn, is the new launching point for the next here. And each small decision made along the way determines where the next here is going to be.

Since becoming a single mom, a single woman, a single human, I have worked hard to rebuild a life that I love living. Intention came into focus. I didn’t want to carelessly or absent-mindedly or distractedly make those small decisions that determine my here.

Have I done that perfectly? No. It can be exhausting to live with that level of intention. Sometimes I slip. Sometimes I make the easy or mindless decision rather than the intentional one. Yet, overall, that shift in thinking has made a huge difference. I know how I got here.

Is here exactly where I want to be right now? Kind of. I’m still working towards a here that I haven’t gotten to yet. I have had to make decisions out of necessity that detoured me a little, but I stand by those decisions. It's part of the HERE process. 

 For example, I’ve had to put aside my writing. It was a conscious decision, and it has been hard. Sometimes I feel like my insides fill to bursting with words that I need to get out on a page, and I can’t. My nearly completed novel sits patiently in a binder by my bed, untouched now for almost half a decade. Yet I remind myself that that decision was intentional, important, and necessary to get here. And it’s temporary. I won’t be away from my writing forever.

Like writing, I’ve had to put aside singing. I spent 35 years of my life singing. And now my voice has been quiet for half a decade. Like writing, I feel songs sitting just at the top of my chest, near to bursting but without the ability to release them. It’s hard. But it’s temporary. It’s a here without singing the way I want to sing, but it’s part of the HERE process. I will sing again.

I’m going to be selling my house soon. I love my house. It’s a 240-year-old stone house that, in a former life, used to be a blacksmith shop. It’s quirky and cozy and filled with laughter and books and memories. I don’t want to sell it. But it’s necessary to continue building the life that I love living. It’s needed to move from here to the next here.

I know how I got here. And even though it’s not exactly where I want to be, that’s okay. I will continue to intentionally make decisions to move toward the next here. I will control the things that am able to control. (The rest is out of my control anyway, so I just need to let that unspool however God decides.) I will remind myself that here is where I’m meant to be, and I need to faithfully act and work and build in the here. I know how I got here.

Asking the question of “How did I get here?” is an important question, if only so I don’t ever have to ask myself that question again and not have an answer.

Unremarkable

Letter to a Friend
Written February 4, 2020

Today I filed for divorce. I went to the courthouse, walked into the Prothonotary's Office, and handed an elderly gentleman with white hair and a yellow tie my forms. The office smelled of breath mints and dust. It was drizzling outside, as I had requested of God and Mother Nature who kindly obliged, and I walked through the drizzle back to the car.

Strangely enough, everything was entirely unremarkable.

My stomach had been churning and a knot of anxiety sat in my chest; as I left, the knot started to relax.

My friend, who is amazing, had gone to the courthouse with me, and we chatted on the drive home about everyday things - work, family, etc. And then she went back to work, and I drove to my soon-to-be-ex's house to give him ("serve him") the papers. We stood in his living room and talked for a moment, and then he said, "I'm sorry. If I could do it all over again, I would run to you. I would choose you."

I nodded and left, because we cannot do it all over again.

Now my chest cradles a great, warm sadness that I know I'll need to carry for awhile.

That was my unremarkable, life-altering day, and I wanted to tell you about it because a part of me wants to wail at the sky, and another part of me feels such relief I am breathless. What amazing creatures we are - to be able to hold such weighty things within us all at once.

Love,

Me

________________________

I share this letter because for a long time I have been silent and journeying. I am still journeying, yet I believe the time to be silent is slowly coming to an end. So here is where I must begin.

Through the Waterfall

 A memory came to mind today. It snuck up on me--one I haven't recalled in years, possibly decades. It came so suddenly that I lost my breath for a second.

I was about 13 years old and on an overnight canoe trip with my junior high youth group. We were paddling and laughing and tipping over and splashing down the Pequea. Our remedial rowing skills aside, we finally arrived at the site where we would be camping out for the evening.

There was a scenic clearing by an old stone mill. A waterfall, with a drop of about 5 or 6 feet, cascaded into a wide swimming area.

It was late afternoon and still time for us to go for a swim. About 6 or 7 of us waded into the water, floating, chatting, bobbing, our fingers and toes turning to prunes, the afternoon sun warm on our cheeks and shoulders. Then some adventurous soul figured out there was a capacious stone shelf behind the waterfall, with room enough for us all. We moved en mass toward the waterfall to see this hidden paradise for ourselves.

As I neared the waterfall, the current became more forceful and the water deepened. I could no longer power walk through the current and had to swim. I was a decent swimmer, but the push of the water was so strong at the base of the waterfall that I couldn't quite get through to the other side.

Everyone else had already disappeared and were, I imagined, cozily resting on the other side. I fought the current, smashing my knee against a submerged rock. Water, pounding from above and rushing at me, relentless, deafening, suffocating.

I thought, "I can't make it."

Then a hand shot through the waterfall toward me. I grabbed hold.

My friend Josh had seen me struggling and extended his hand. He pulled me just beyond the crashing water so I could reach the stone ledge. I dragged myself up next to the others sitting, teeth chattering, some still panting from their own struggle, all listening to the roar of water and our own heartbeats.

I was tired. My bruised knee was already turning an angry purple. But, with Josh's help, I had made it. I don't remember anything else about that ledge behind the waterfall. I remember sleeping beneath the stars in my sleeping bag around the campfire. I remember waking up damp with dew.

And I remember that hand reaching out from the water toward me. A friend who saw more than his own journey. A solid grip from someone able to help.

I'm sure he doesn't remember this small act. But I do. Nearly 30 years later, and I still remember.

Maya Angelou said, "Every storm runs out of rain." (I do love that line.) However, with waterfalls, they keep rushing at you. Just like life. And sometimes, to get through the deluge and to be able to get to where we're going, we need help.

Be brave, and take an offered hand.

Be brave, and extend your own.

Let's be brave together, my friends.