Vacation

Was any of this ever mine? Was my life ever actually my own?

Peace, peace he is not dead nor does he sleep – he has awakened from the dream of life. That was Percy Blythe Shelley from a million years ago, long before I was born, long before I died. Is life a dream? I’m not sure about that. If it’s a dream, it’s not always a lucid dream and I seem to be a mere character within it. Looking at my insides like a spectator, waiting for someone else’s plan to proceed.

I have just taken a vacation, a vacation from my own life. The scenery was changed, there was no schedule or plan, obligation seemed to be very far away. My living space was a mess, looking more like a crack house than a domicile. A needy and undisciplined dog roamed the open spaces, claiming long forgotten scraps of inorganic refuse as her own. There was no need to be sensible, respectable, or responsible. Paradise by the television light, my binkie would never abandon me and life was good.

But it did not last. The glaring reality of the world continued to knock, bills to be paid, people to be placated, time to keep. I was far more comfortable in the Salvador Dali world, with clocks that melted and swans that resembled elephants in their own reflection. It has been said that reality is for people who cannot handle drugs, but I handled mine with aplomb. Believing I was a pterodactyl for a weekend in college after some exceptional blotter acid remains one of my finest hours.

Alice is not in Wonderland, but there is a disenchanted queen who wants her head. The White Rabbit has not been seen for weeks and has made off with Alice’s wallet. She is insecure about her finances, and there is a scarcity of mushrooms. The problem with Wonderland is there is a dearth of solutions. It does not appear to be a permanent state of affairs, and it’s not the fall but the sudden stop that is a problem when you have to come back to Earth.

Back to life, back to reality, back to the here and now. That’s a song, by a group “Soul II Soul”. Reality is inevitable, whether you want it or not, whether you accept it or not. Drink copious amounts, take really good drugs, whatever is your fancy but reality will always intrude The idyllic high is always temporary, and nothing has changed outside of its short-lived enclave. Better living by chemistry is not all that it is cracked up to be these days, and it’s expensive. Reality is nature’s revenge for escapism, hedonism, and narcissism. A microscopic virus replicates the message that it’s not all about us, over and over again. So be afraid, be very afraid.

What if this is all there is? What if we don’t get this right? It would seem that not getting it right is the only reason to believe there’s an afterlife, another chance, a do-over. I suspect we’ve had many do-overs, and maybe there’s no limit on those. It would seem to get rather tiresome, however, to keep repeating the same exercise again and again, with no perceivable improvement. But, when you’re learning to play a musical instrument, the only way to achieve proficiency and eventually mastery is to practice the same exercises again and again and again. Many abandon the lessons early on, but a few maintain a commitment to mastery. Perhaps that is metaphorically true for human lives, only a few of us are committed to mastery, only a few of us continue the discipline of practice, of a beginner’s mind, of continuous improvement. The rest of us…not so much.

As I age, I am more and more convinced that every single error in judgment, every single negative outcome, every single mistake, every single misery is necessary to build mastery. These were not all errors of my youth, or errors before pscyho-therapy or sobriety, but still errors of inexperience and immaturity. Immaturity is a necessary stage, and it is not a function of chronological age, especially given that time is a human construct. I have always been mature about survival, but extraordinarily juvenile about living.

My mother always said that I often lived in a fantasy world, and that’s probably true. It was a way to escape the harsh and unforgiving nature of her world, where one needed to toughen up and have a thick skin, and do the necessary things. Nobody had time for fantasy or wonder, or joy. Life was an experience of endurance, of staying one step ahead of the inevitable disaster that lurked around every turn. Go outside and have fun but remember where you are and what you have to do. Don’t ever forget that survical, and not happiness, is not the measure of success.

So now here I am, the prodigal daughter. I desperately sought joy, but it has been elusive. I am not sure I have the infrastructure for joy. I am not sure I know how to have actual joy, or wild abandon. That is not reality, and I’m always at the ready for reality because it is unforgiving and enjoys attacking when you are not paying attention. Enjoyment usually means that I am not paying attention, and the most at risk for grave loss.

There are some losses one can never be prepared for, like death of a loved one. Losses with no advance warning, losses for which you have no frame of reference. Losses so grave they cause you to recalibrate your relationship to the rest of the world. There is no joy for quite a while after those have befallen you, as though you have no space not tainted with sorrow and grief. Life is a corset several sizes too small, squeezing the breath from your lungs until every inhalation is a sigh, every exhalation a sob. There is no space for joy because every cell in your body is desperately searching for something to hold onto in the emotional tsunami that has become your life.

When the waves receded for me this last time, there was debris everywhere. Some things that I might have wanted to keep were ruined, other things were beyond their usefulness and ready to be discarded. There was very little to be retained, reclaimed, restored. I got plenty of trash bags and squared my shoulders to haul them out of my space. Clearing away so much of the old has left room for the new, but there is still work to be done in creating a new space for my Self. Some of the old things are bits and pieces of a life I no longer claim, so it is good they are gone. I have no further use for those things. Creating the new life is more daunting.

So here we are. I’m doing some necessary things, but I am not sure I am independently creative. I am plagued with the destructive thoughts of being too old, too damaged, not talented enough, not worthy enough. My crayons are broken and many colors are missing, and I am looking for a template that doesn’t exist. I’ve never considered myself much of an artist, so I am in a dither about how to draw the life I want to live. I suppose it’s a day at a time, an hour at a time, a step at a time. I’m not quitting, even on the days when I really want to hang this up and be gone. I’m not quitting, because it would be such disrespect to my people who have lived through so much. They didn’t get everything right, but nobody does. I’m just going to have to keep going even when I don’t know why, or for what. I came here for some reason, and maybe it’s just my time to get a little closer to getting it right…whatever right might be.