There are no safe choices, only other choices.
“You must try to correct it”
“But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t?”
“Then you must find a way to live with it.” - A Great and Terrible Beauty
While I watched Princess Catherine wave gracefully to her admirers, sitting next to her new husband, the future King of England, I couldn’t help but be baffled by the surreality of it all. Maybe it was because I had only slept for four hours and I insisted on wearing a plastic tiara that was cutting off circulation to my eyes.
I think, however, that the main culprit lies with the fact that I allowed myself to separate from reality, and enter into a world that could not harm me, could not hold me down, or put me in a box. I allowed myself to let Kate’s reality become my surreality.
I remember the first time my fantasy world collided with reality. I was four and it was a hot summer day. I went out to my driveway and waited for my neighbor to join me in my plan to hi-jack our garden hose and run under it the ice-cold water. After some time passed, and I was no longer amused by my collection of sidewalk chalk, I decided to go looking for him. As I rounded the corner of his house I saw a tent sitting on top of the browning grass. His platinum blonde hair was barely visible through the mesh, but it was certainly his, so I went inside. The thick smell of must and mothballs surrounded me and I could already feel the sweat dripping down my neck as I zipped the tent back up and sat down across from my newly-found friend.
“Why are you in here?” I asked, already mildly irritated that I left my chalk for a pop-up sauna.
“I didn’t feel like playing.”
“Why?”
“My grandpa died today”
I remember not being able to comprehend this statement. We sat there in silence for a few moments as I tried to mill over what he meant. To me, the solution was obvious.
“Why don’t you just go dig him up?”
“I already asked, my dad said I can’t. He’s in there forever.”
Forever.
I distinctly remember the images that flashed in my mind. A small blonde boy with a shovel, pushing dirt aside as his Grandpa jumped out of the ground with a smile on his face (apparently I found this picture endearing and not creepy-as-hell)…as if it had all been a big game of hide and go seek.
Because, up until then, that’s all life had been to me, a game that no-one could lose. Chutes and ladders, without the chutes. I had no time or patience or this rain reality was bringing to my parade.
I was angry, and I was afraid.
The world had told me “no” and there was nothing I could do about it.
If his grandpa was gone, where were we? Would we be here forever? Could we find him? Why was there no other possible solution?
We cannot go back. The world turns and we cannot stop it.
Some people spend their whole lives trying to resurrect the “used-to-be”s. People who have found themselves trapped because they’d rather not open their eyes at all, then open them and see only photographs. An existence that will always be hollow.
And sometimes I’m afraid that I’m not much different. Afraid that I am one disillusioned decision away from those who cannot move on because they are lost in the dream of how it was. Unable to except the reality I’ve been given.
I have no idea how I got here, 7 short days from graduating college, but yet, here I am. Covered in battle wounds that have been forged and healed by the past 22 years of my life. Glorious chaos.
Our experiences and our stories define who we are, they’ve made us. I think we fear reality because we know it will change things, and in turn, it will change us…and we are helpless to stop it. We cannot demand that the world from spinning. We can’t control the air we breathe, the sun that rises and sets, or the car that swerves out of it’s lane directly in front of us.
But the beauty of all of it is that, life will always go on. We’ll always be transitioning, growing, changing- and the sooner we come to embrace that, the quicker we are able to slow down our lives and embrace the moment our feet are standing in. We start to be able to understand that (in the words of Libba Bray) “to those who will see, the world waits”. For those who are looking for it, there will always be opportunity for what your soul needs.
Some people say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. I would argue it’s more about how we lace our shoes.
So I will wake up on the morning of May 7th 2011 and accept that there is no re-start button. I’ll turn my tassel knowing that there is so much I do not know, so much to discover, and that this is only the beginning of many moments that will change things forever with or without my consent.
Huzzah.
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