It's gunna feel like you're dying

baby aspirin, the hero's journey, and not knowing anything about anything

I’ve been in a real pickle over here my friends. If you did care to notice (but if you didn’t, I don’t think myself so important) it has been a few weeks since I’ve been able to sit down and write. This is because I’ve been in the very special hell (underworld, hades, the dark) that is searching for a home before winter in one of the utmost lands of winter; while solo parenting, while camping, while having near death experiences, while navigating motorhome breakdowns and martial arts classes with two small children a dog and a cat.

To say I have bitten off more than I could chew would be a profound understatement. I’ve been choking.

And so logically I started chewing those little baby aspirin, you know the little orange ones, religiously every morning. I first started taking them when I was pregnant to offset preeclampsia, a condition where you get very high blood pressure, and then would promptly throw them aside after each baby had arrived and my blood pressure returned to its normal state (which is rapid fluttering). I started taking them again because even though I knew it was silly, when I would wake up most mornings, a small part of me thought geez, I hope I don’t have a heart attack today or something.

The problem was I was waking up to a meteor sized ball of anxiety in the middle of my chest...sometimes in the middle of the night. I would hear my voice say interesting that the act of opening my eyes is creating a feeling a panic.

The amount of anxiety, fear, and panic that knocked on my door, flew in, and lodged itself directly in my chest during this, I’ll call it a quest, to find a home has been shocking folks. I didn’t see it coming (maybe that’s a good thing, or we probably never would have started out). The thing is the drive here was such a lovely, peaceful for the most part, picturesque adventure. I suppose that’s how all quests start out right? Even when it felt crazy from the outside, I would sink into the feeling that we we’re being pulled along in the right direction. And then suddenly while the place (Minnesota) felt right; nothing else did. Nothing felt right; every neighborhood, every house, every possible move towards settling down we could make filled my veins with ice. 

I would try to hide this state of being from the children by smiling very hard (which only made them nervous). My littlest one actually said mommy your face looks…wrong…while I was smiling at her and asking her what she wanted for breakfast, declaring tightly that we had a plan for the day! Usually involving something fun for them in the morning. I would always try to start the day with something fun in the hope that this would counterbalance the unreasonable request I would make of them in the second half of the day. Which was for them to sit in a car and drive around looking at houses for at least four hours. An hour at a nature center does not forgive four hours driving all around a city looking at sad houses. At the end even my hysterical offerings for as many blueberry muffins as they wanted had no affect. Everyone was squirming as if possessed in the backseat and moaning, noooo more, and I didn’t blame them. I was doing the same thing secretly in my head.

I bought a t-shirt at Target that said “just keep going.” and then thought wait, maybe I don’t have to…maybe I could stop? Hmmmmm.

Here’s the t-shirt and me wearing it on the day I moved the rig solo. It broke down for the second time…note the small hysterical glimmer in my eyes

I felt a little hysterical to be honest but I also felt like I had to press on. Interesting right? I also definitely felt like I had to make the right choice (insert trumpets and confetti), as if this choice was the last one I would ever make in my life. All others had been leading to this moment and I would make a decision on where we would live and then deep sigh be done forever. Sealing the deal on a childhood of joy and beauty for my children. Unfortunately, the anxiety was so overwhelming, spreading some sort of weird cold voodoo into the corners of my brain. I couldn't see anything but catastrophe everywhere I looked…I’d imagine the bikes on the bike rack flying off behind me on the freeway causing a two mile pile up. I’d wince as we walked into a restaurant for lunch that was a little bit nicer than I’d thought, bracing for the hostess to tell me they don’t take children and how dare I enter their establishment with my vinyl sandals. I’d be driving into the city to look at a house and I’d imagine the RV bursting into flames while we were gone, coming back to the campsite to nothing, and having to hear Esme whisper to her friends for the rest of my life my mom is the reason my dog burned alive.

It got to me. I was completely exhausted and detached. I had the dead eyes, you know the ones, when I brushed my teeth at night. I had completely lost my sense of humor and so faked it by singing about EVERYTHING that made me want to cry throughout the day (off key with a dry mouth.) For instance; we are late and I asked Lorelei if she had to use the potty, she said noooooo but now that we’re on the freeway, she has to gooooooo. I offer this to you as a gift. Try it. It is magic when you feel you are about to cry or are about to have a parenting moment in which your children will bring up in therapy years later. Make up an off key song about it, sing it out loud wherever you are, and it will save you from profound regret and apologies involving explaining why you raised your voice.

The one thing I did manage to do amidst all this falling apart was keep to our bedtime reading routine. Esme and I just finished book four of the Percy Jacksons series and while reading the words of these teenage hero’s on their quests, I had a not so brilliant, but completely obvious Aha moment! which brought me some comfort. For those of you who it’s been a minute since High School English Class, the hero’s journey goes a little something like this; the hero goes out on an adventure or quest to achieve a goal, they face obstacles and fears, they return transformed. That is in fact how it’s supposed to go. Not they head out and everything goes swell and they feel great and then they transform. The obstacles and fears part -THAT IS THE QUEST. It’s right there in the middle.

And more specifically, there is always a part in the quest where they want to turn back, they question why they started in the first place, they doubt themselves, and perhaps even become a character that’s a bit cringe-worthy; making some questionable decisions or behaving in ways, that as a reader make you root for them, while also squinting your eyes and whispering wow, pull yourself together woman. Sometimes they get lost for a long time and nothing happens, except that they're stuck on an island hoping to not get turned into a pig. But they don’t give up because this is all the way it’s supposed to happen.

The phrase not for the faint of heart comes to mind…because here’s the thing, it’s going to feel like you’re dying when you do stuff like this, even if wild horses couldn’t keep you away, as as Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan shared on their recent Bewildered podcast episode. It feels like you’re dying because you kinda are, spiritually speaking but that doesn’t mean you’re alone, and that doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong track.

So when everything felt like it was going wrong and I started fantasizing about turning tail and running I started whispering to myself hello, obstacles and fears. So when the motorhome broke down for the second time, while in line on a Friday night (busiest time at a campground by the way) while trying to check in at a KOA (backing up DOZENS of other rigs behind me), in a thunder storm and while I was alone with my three year old. I took a deep breath, cried a little, and said hello, obstacles and fears. When we nearly got run off the road by a truck swerving across four lanes, which hit a light poll, which then started to come down like a giant tree and missed us, by I think two inches if I’m being generous. I marveled that it missed us, that my hands were still on the wheel, and we were still on our way safely and whispered hello, obstacles and fears. We made offers on houses which were rejected and looked at many more which didn’t even inspire a full look through. We showed up and just got back in the car, exhausted…hello, fears. We moved to campgrounds that were more like parking lots and who’s shower water smelled liked rotten eggs…hello obstacles.

It got to the point where everywhere I looked, every thought I had, was filled with noticing fears and obstacles. I think this would be the part of the story where Poseidon thrashes Odysseus around at sea for a few months and all he could do was hang on. I was very very done. I actually one night after getting the kids to bed crawled down on the floor, got on my knees and put my forehead to the floor and just said okie dokie, my plan is no plan universe. Just show me which way to go…how do I get off this freakin island?

I’ve been sitting quite still the past few weeks; feeling a lot of feelings about how things have unfolded and being quiet. The only words of wisdom which have come to me have been these, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know…

There is a Koan that my friend John Dore shared with me, which goes like this, not knowing is most intimate. And that is why this whole thing started in the first place. A desire for an intimate life, which let’s be honest, is probably always going to be a bit painful and scary if it’s worth it’s salt.

I’m still chewing my baby aspirin but the meteor is gone. I think I called out the obstacles and fears so much they kind of hit the road, for the time being anyway….they’ll be back, and I’ll be ready to greet them with my skeleton cup. It’s all been so hard that I have had to completely surrender to deeply, truly, not even gunna try and pretend I know where we’re headed or why anymore, but I’m listening for hoofbeats and watching to see what comes next.