Category: Bathtub epiphanies

At every major juncture in life there is a choice which will inevitably change the course of your life beyond that point. We’re very good at postponing our happiness until we reach one of these pivotal milestones. ‘When I finish college…’, ‘when I get married….’, ‘when we have kids…’ blah blah. The list is endless. For some inexplicable reason happiness can only ever be measured by these mile markers along the road of life.

What we fail to realize is that it’s the little choices at every turn that shape which major milestones we’ll eventually pass along the way. Not every road passes the College sign, or the turn-off to Marriage and Kids.

We’re so hung up on looking for the big stuff that the little details fall by the wayside, unnoticed and ignored.

Hindsight will eventually let you see those details for what they are. Life. Those details are your life. Maybe by the time you opt to use the Hindsight feature, it’s too late to change anything.

I’ve been battling the meaning of life questions internally for 2 decades. I’ve had some epiphanies along the way. I’ve also found more questions which have driven me to endless distraction. What it usually boils down to is the bottomless question of: What am I meant to be doing with my life? What will make me happy? What am I missing?!

It turns out those weren’t the right questions. Not for me anyway. They’re more like sub-questions inside of a larger problem. My question has always been: where do I belong? Through a long convoluted and serendipitous set of events, I ended up spending my 2 week vacation in Scotland this year. It was the best impulsive decision I’ve made in years! In the space of 2 short weeks I found what I’ve been searching for all this time: Balance, beauty and bliss.

Almost 3 weeks after returning from Scotland I had a hysterectomy. That was 10 days ago. It’s hard to believe that a month ago I was 4,000 miles away from where I am now. I’m not feeling particularly balanced, blissful or much in the mood to find the beauty in the details right now.

On Friday, 13^th November 2015 I stood on the shores of Loch Ness in the rain, watching the mist roll in over the water. I stood under a tree at the water’s edge and made a promise. I bought 2 crystals in Edinburgh, Falcon’s Eyes, and I tossed one of them into the Loch. The other went into my bra next to my heart where it stayed every day until I went into the hospital; an invisible tie to the one place on earth I felt most at home. It’s a constant reminder to keep the promise I made that day; to find my way home, no matter what it takes. I gave myself 1 year to make good on that promise.

Scotland brought me balance, beauty and bliss. Spiritual and emotional balance. The details that bog down my daily existence stateside didn’t make an appearance at all while I was there. I wasn’t calorie-obsessed like I am here. If I wanted a cream tea, I had one. I fed myself delicious foods in just the right quantities. Nothing was supersized and it was easier to buy food that wasn’t caked in chemicals and artificial crap. I’m not saying those options weren’t around, they just weren’t as prevalent. Food was a pleasure, not a daily demon to be fought.

In the 2 weeks I was there I had either breakfast or afternoon tea at the same coffee shop on the corner every day. I ate my way through a chunk of their menu. Seriously, they should pay their chef whatever the hell he wants because it was sublime. The staff came over to say goodbye on the last day I was there. All of them. They were such a brilliant bunch.

There was beauty in everything. The architecture, the history, the people, the countryside. The Highlands were breathtakingly beautiful despite the desolation of winter. I’m not religious but I went into churches and cathedrals to soak up the silence and beauty of it all. There was so much detail in the carvings and glass that you could spend weeks there and not see all the meaning hidden in the details.

Finding balance and being surrounded by the beauty of the place led to pure bliss. It rained most days yet walking out in the rain didn’t make me cranky. There was so much to see and hear and taste that the rain was just another detail in the daily tapestry of Scottish life.

There’s something that has drawn me to that place for as long as I can remember. This was not my first trip there and each time the feeling has been the same: I’m finally home.

Leaving this time was the hardest thing I’ve done in years. I couldn’t stop the tears when the plane left the tarmac and headed south to London.

It feels like a lifetime ago since I left and a lot has changed since I got back to Chicago. My body has undergone a bit of an adjustment and is still recovering. Work is still the same and I know it needs to change. Food has once again become a daily battle and the balance I brought back with me has been replaced with internal chaos.

I’ve just hurtled past the ‘NO KIDS’ mile marker on my path. I’m not entirely sure what the next major intersection is going to be, I’m hoping it is a one way ticket to Edinburgh International but that remains to be seen.

The reality vs. the expectation for the surgery ended up poles apart. I was expecting it to be more painful and traumatic than it has been. That’s in large part thanks to my doctor, who I’m sure is an angel, and the stellar nurses who looked after me in hospital. They were absolute angels and I’m sure it could have gone very differently had they not been part of my care.

Strangely enough, the hardest part of it all has been the limitations. I cannot drive for a few weeks, I’m largely dependent on others for help which is something I’m finding hard to adjust to. I’m used to getting things done and being the one others rely on for help. Being the helpless one has been difficult and has had me in tears in my bed more than once. I’m SO grateful to my sister for everything she’s doing for me, she’s been my rock since the op and there’s no measure of thanks that would do her justice.

What I didn’t expect was the absence of friends. People I thought would be there haven’t been and that’s been gutting. I guess I expected they would help me in the ways I’ve helped them and that hasn’t been the case. It’s been hard to accept that they haven’t been there when I’ve needed them but it is what it is. It has made me question my role in their lives and the level of care I put into others at the expense of my sanity. My priorities need to shift because at the moment they’ve heavily stacked on the ‘what’s good for everyone else’ side of the equation. There’s no balance.

Between today and tomorrow are a bunch of little choices and teeny little winding roads that can be taken. In among all of that is balance, beauty and bliss. There’s also chaos, carnage and mayhem if I don’t choose wisely.

Whatever meaning of life questions you’re grappling with right now, pick one thing (or 3) that you know brings you a measure of peace and happiness. Once you have that, start looking for the little decisions that will take you to more of that. It is the consistent choices in favor of your goal that will eventually get you there.

Synchronicity has teetered on that thin line between magic and bullshit; an elusive yet sought-after state of being that I’ve never been sure actually exists. Until now. Well, either it is very real and in my face or the universe is fucking me in Technicolor.

For the past 2 days my mind has been mulling over the same topic: what really matters at the end of it all? Can one person’s actions actually make any significant difference in the grand scheme of things? Chaos theory suggests every miniscule thing can change the outcomes in huge and drastic ways. The Butterfly Effect. The infinitesimal change in air currents from a butterfly’s wings can change entire weather patterns hundreds of miles away. Sounds like bullshit, doesn’t it? Yet, using forecasting models and changing an air current by .00001 of a percentage results in an entirely different weather model. Apparently proven, if Wikipedia is to be believed.

So what exactly has brought me to the point where I’m sitting in my bathtub with my laptop balanced on my toilet seat writing this? Maybe some Freudian significance of removing all obstacles from my mind? Exploring myself completely exposing all my weaknesses and flaws? Being willing to be honest even if it’s something I don’t want to see right now? Questions…

There might be some truth in the saying ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’ Have I chosen NOT to see until now? Or was the lack of synchronicity the wall I wasn’t able to get over?

For as long as I can remember I have not wanted to be part of this world. Everything in me has begged to be released from this prison because I cannot and will not be confined by the opinions of those around me. People who have never known me. I look at everyone in my life and not a single person has ever seen everything. Each person sees what I show them, never exposed to the full picture of me. Some know the good, others the bad, others were privy to the tragic and a miniscule handful know the dark. Not a single person has seen it all. If I were to die now and all of these people came together, they’d never believe they knew the same person at all. A true Gemini. A job well done if you ask me.

Camouflage? Or self-preservation? Most of my walls were built to hide from the tragedy, to get away from the hell of living. A few of the walls keep out the bad. The bars on the windows keep me safe. One slight problem. I’ve trapped an intruder IN my compound. I’ve made it so safe without realizing that the thing I need to get away from the most is locked in with me. Safely unable to escape, tormenting me constantly. ID10T error of note.

Fear.

I wish I could pin a memory where that little chestnut moved in and made itself at home. To be honest, I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t afraid of something. I cried a lot as a kid. Everything scared me. In among all of that carnage and mayhem, my music and books were the places I could go and be somewhere else. My piano got me through the darkest hours of my life and my diaries took me the rest of the way. How, I’ll never know. There’s a certain magic in words and music I suppose.

Here I am, all grown up, a world away from where I started. As soon as I get ready to face my demons, I distract myself with moving away and well, then my demons move down the list of shit I need to take care of. Repeat as necessary. Apparently it’s been necessary since 1997 and almost 2 decades later I suspect the time has come to draw a line in the sand. Only one of us will be crossing that line and continuing on.

So who is it to be? Me + baggage? Or just me? Or will I cave at the line and my baggage will win, drowning me out completely? Points to ponder.

Chaos theory certainly describes what I feel goes on in my head all damn day. It’s like being on a constant conference call with 87 people who cannot stop talking, or agree on anything from one day to the other. Bloody draining, I don’t mind saying.

At any point in my life I could have chosen something else. I could have chosen not to live with Gran. I could have chosen to stay with Mom. I could have chosen Dad. I could have gone to a different school where I was allowed to date. Maybe then I wouldn’t be as socially inept as I feel now. Maybe I would have found someone to love and settled down in one place, got a dog. Or a fish. Had I not chosen Gran, I would have been in another place when she died. I would never have gone with Colleen which would have kept me off Billy’s path. Without him I may have gone on to live a life in another city, never once contemplating relocating to East London in a desperate attempt to win back my lost love. I would not have pined for a man who was never man enough to face his feelings, instead burying them in religion because sex was apparently made in hell by Satan. Which made me God knows what in his eyes for finding pleasure in his body. Pleasure I was always terrified of because of all the other BS that came before. Pleasure I no longer deny.

I would not have taken the first job which relocated me closer to him. The price I paid for following my heart is almost 2 decades in banking which I loathe. Without losing him I would not have hit rock bottom forcing Colleen to get drastic and push me into scuba diving. My diving instructor…. The man who would take up 10 years of my life. The man who would coax me out of my shell, make me whole and then crush me into dust until nothing remained. The man I have moved across 2 countries to get away from. A man who would not defend me, who would watch while my family tormented me for loving him while never loving me enough to protect me. He never chose me publicly, only privately.

What if I’d stayed in my home town? Would I be sitting in the dark now without power because the country has gone to hell in a hand basket? Would I maybe even be a statistic? How about employed? Or still living on the poverty line relying on someone else to buy me food because the choice was gas or food?

What about Christo? What if I had chosen him instead of choosing to be the mistress of a ‘married’ man? What if I had not answered the phone that day to go meet the divers for breakfast? What if I had stayed on the beach that night and waited for him like he asked me to? All because I was afraid of putting what I wanted first. I chickened out and took the sterile option that would never require a commitment because well, the other guy was married.

Choosing the life of a home-wrecking bitch took me to the brink of sanity where the only way out was across the border to make a life 8,000 miles away to get away from it all. Only the carnage followed me and relocated its dragon-ass 4 miles up the road to continually taunt me until the only escape was via Heathrow. Again. God love the M25. It leads all kinds of good places.

Through all of this the constant unanswered question has been, why the fuck am I here? What purpose do I actually have because if this is it, I am out? I’ve been missing a part of myself for as long as I can remember. An eternity with a piece missing. Of course, people in their infinite wisdom keep telling me that ‘it will come when you stop looking.’ What the actual fuck does that even mean?! How do you stop looking for the missing piece of your soul? Oh, it’s missing? Well okey dokey then, I’ll just leave that gap there and soldier on, shall I? Oh, and while we’re at it, what the fuck am I actually looking for anyway?! Is it a person? A place? A thing? I don’t even know which piece is missing, only that there’s a piece missing.

For all I know I’m homesick for a place that isn’t real. I’m looking for a person who could actually be dead in a ditch, never to be found. Maybe he was never born. Maybe I sat next to him on the train and he got off and never looked back.

So… what if… I didn’t choose any of those things this time around? What if this incarnation isn’t about me? What if…. My sole purpose on this godforsaken planet is to change what is around me for the better? The Butterfly Effect.

I can look back at things I’ve changed, people I’ve helped, some secretly, others not. How different was their outcome because I was there at a time they needed something only I could provide? A multitude of decisions took me to quitting my job, booking a random ticket home without telling anyone only to arrive a day after mom broke her hand going into her busiest time for her business. Decisions that had no relation to her led me to be in a place where I could do something to change her outcome. Synchronicity?

John Gabriel in the Philippines. Or Pendo in Kenya. Changes…. Infinitesimal changes in places I’ve never been. Yet those changes exist because I do. Elize. Stephanie. Charlotte….

She told me once that I gave her freedom. I took her out of her tiny world and taught her how to use the train. I took her to London, way outside of her comfort zone and taught her how to navigate. Her first flight abroad was to visit me stateside. Her first flight, period. I taught her to drive. I packed her life into my car and helped her start a new one on her own because I specialize in starting over with nothing. Oh, and packing. I’m freakishly good at packing shit. And then I drifted out of her life and she’s headed on a path she’d never imagined. Her love lives in London and her career has her all over the place. Our paths will probably never cross again. She’s living fearless instead of dependent on anyone. Changed.

Melissa. I’ve given up my life and everything in it to move to a new place. That shitty time when everything you know is gone and you’re about to head off a cliff into a life you haven’t seen yet in a place you don’t know. What do you keep and what do you give away? She had the freedom not to have to make that decision while her stuff lived in my attic for a few years and she crashed on my sofa for 2 weeks while she was ‘homeless.’ Changed.

Louis. Refused to cross a border. Any border. Ever. Dragged him over the border into Canada and he now has a list of places he wants to go. Changed.

What if that is all I am meant to do? Move. Integrate. Change. Leave. Repeat.

What if every shitty experience is merely knowledge that will help me change something for someone later? I experience, live, process, pass on.

And what if……. I can convince some of the changes to BE changes for someone else? Pay it forward meets Butterfly Effect. There would probably be no way of measuring it, only the idea that Chaos Theory dictates that it will change and trusting people to pay it forward using random acts of kindness for people they’ll never know.

A few months ago I started reading a set of books suggested by a woman I’ve never met. A book that is pulling me to Scotland with a force that will not be ignored. A somewhat expensive novel if you ask me… Because of this wee love affair I have with Scotland I watch video clips set to music with scenes from the book. Which led to an e-mail notifying me of a new video clip on YouTube, which was set to a song, which piqued my interest, which lead to me googling the official video, which happened to be a chain of events of people paying it forward. The lyrics of this song ask every question I have been too dumb to ask myself.

The words to the song by Nickelback:

What are you waiting for?
What are you waiting for?

Are you waiting on a lightning strike?
Are you waiting for the perfect night?
Are you waiting ’til the time is right?
What are you waiting for?
Don’t you wanna learn to deal with fear?
Don’t you wanna take the wheel and steer?
Don’t you wait another minute here?
What are you waiting for?

What are you waiting for?

You gotta go and reach for the top
Believe in every dream that you got
You’re only living once so tell me
What are you, what are you waiting for?
You know you gotta give it your all
And don’t you be afraid if you fall
You’re only living once so tell me
What are you, what are you waiting for?

Are you waiting for the right excuse?
Are you waiting for a sign to choose?
While you’re waiting it’s the time you lose
What are you waiting for?
Don’t you wanna spread your wings and fly?
Don’t you really wanna live your life?
Don’t you wanna love before you die?
What are you waiting for?

What are you waiting for?

You gotta go and reach for the top
Believe in every dream that you got
You’re only living once so tell me
What are you, what are you waiting for?
You know you gotta give it your all
And don’t you be afraid if you fall
You’re only living once so tell me
What are you, what are you waiting for?

Tell me what you’re waiting for
Show me what you’re aiming for
Whatcha going to save it for?
So whatcha really waiting for?

Everybody’s gonna make mistakes
But everybody’s got a choice to make
Everybody needs a leap of faith
When are you taking yours?

What are you waiting for?

What am I waiting for? How much longer am I going to refuse to live because I’m scared of being hurt? Because I’m afraid I’m not good enough? Good enough for who?! The longest relationship I’m ever going to have is with the person in the mirror. Cradle to the grave.

Maybe the time has come to stop moving. Relocation is not necessary to change the outcome. Every face I pass could be a change. Maybe the time has come to take the bars off the windows and let people in again. Not everyone is going to wreck the place. If they do, I’ve gotten up every day of my life and weathered every train wreck life has provided. 100% success rate on survival to date. Pretty fan-bloody-tastic if you ask me.

If I can do a reverse bailout and stare into the jaws of a Great White a foot from my face separated by a metal bar then what exactly is it that I’m afraid of here?

According to me there are 3 theories about life after death. One says there is life, one says there isn’t and one says you keep coming back until you’ve learned all your lessons. Don’t know about you but whichever way it goes at the end, there’s nothing to lose. If you get to live forever, then whatever you do now is but a drop in the ocean of eternity. If there’s nothing at the end of it, then nothing you do now matters anyway. It won’t exist once you die so go big or go home. If you get to keep coming back, then ya know what? You’ve probably lived a dozen lives with many more to come. So it’s a bit like getting another go so if you bollox this one up, it’s fine, you get to try again with a different set of cards. You win in every option. There is nothing to lose. Absolutely goddamn nothing.

If you knew you were going to die at a certain time, how would that change today? And just to drive the point home a friend I met in East London working at the bank I ended up at because I met Billy after Gran died, posted this quote today:

“One day your heart will stop beating and none of your fears will matter. What will matter is how you lived.” – Henri Junttila