“Love is an ever fixed mark…”
I woke up late…much later than I normally do.
I like to rise around 4:15, just to make sure I have time to
journal, meditate, or sit with the early birds if it’s warm enough. That
head-clearing time is the best start to my days.
When I started this new job, I created a small ritual that
has helped me tremendously. I lay out my clothes for the next day, prepare my
coffee, breakfast, and lunch… and remind myself, even when I’m tired, that “my
future self will thank me.”
And she always does.
So when I woke up at 6:15 on Tuesday… I didn’t panic. Not
even a bit.
I started the shower, threw on a shower cap, got dressed,
put on my makeup, and pulled part of my hair up… messy locks that my students
adore.
As I walked into work five minutes late instead of fifteen
minutes early… still no panic.
I stopped to look at what was left of the blossoms and
thought to myself:
This must be what it feels like to have a regulated nervous system.
Because in years past, my life was nothing but panic.
Everything felt like a five-alarm fire.
Every pebble in the road meant catastrophe.
My parents had dear friends that I absolutely adored...
Alice used to say,
“It’s like pole vaulting over mouse turds.”
That was my life.
And I could never understand why.
Today, I had the day off… appointments with my girls.
When I dropped my youngest son off at school, kids and
parents alike were waving. I even heard one kid yell, “Where are you going?
We need you!”
This came on the heels of notes left behind after our art
show… kids telling me they love me, that I’m “cool,” “nice,” and apparently the
“G.O.A.T.”
And sitting at a red light, it hit me:
My whole life, I have just wanted to be seen for who I
really am.
And somehow… all the love I’ve poured out into the world
has found its way back to me.
I felt like I had arrived.
Not in the way I imagined… but in a way that made me pause
and realize:
Life rarely shows up how we expect it to.
But sometimes… it shows up exactly how we need it to.
Over the past few years, my perspective has shifted so
drastically that my grief had to turn completely around.
I used to believe I stayed and tolerated so much because
fate had knocked on my door.
But what I’ve come to understand through therapy and a
stubborn “can-do” spirit is this:
I was the one standing in the way
of the life meant for me.
I had a chokehold on proving to people who discarded me
that I was worth loving, cherishing, choosing.
It never occurred to me.. not once in 27 years…
that what was meant for me would find me and stay.
Not because I proved it.
But because I already am..
sweet, funny, thoughtful, smart…
a chill, cool girl.
I’ve always been.
And then the dam burst.
And I was left standing in the aftermath… a partial
foundation,
downed tree debris scattered in only one direction:
Truth.
My grief changed.
It was never about losing someone who loved me.
It was about realizing
I had never fully loved myself enough
to let what wasn’t meant for me
fall away.
I made myself small.
I walked on eggshells.
I took responsibility for someone else’s emotions,
someone else’s harm.
Mark Twain once said:
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning.
And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
This was the biggest frog I have ever swallowed.
And if I’m honest… the hardest part has been forgiving
myself.
When Rube was clearing out the house in Florence, preparing
to move in with my Aunt Marianne, she gave me a number of things.
One was her college textbook… the complete works of William
Shakespeare.
It’s worn now. The binding frayed from years of being held,
opened, returned to.
Near the back lives the collection of sonnets.
One of them - Sonnet 116 - became my anchor nearly sixteen
years ago, when I found myself discarded for the second time.
Let me not to the marriage of true
minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration
finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never
shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring
bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his
height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy
lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass
come.
Love alters not with his brief hours
and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of
doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
I knew then that what I had experienced was not love.
I even wrote about it.
What I didn’t know yet…
was how to forgive myself for staying.
That part is still unfolding.
But I understand now:
I made mistakes.
And I am still here… living, breathing, and more than okay.
These days, my life is full.
Family.
Friends, old and new.
Men whose eyes light up when they see me.
Every interaction reminds me…
it is safe to try again.
To believe again.
To begin again.
Every hug from my children, my students, my people…
it all tells me the same thing:
Love has always been here.
Steady.
Present.
Unmoving.
An ever-fixed mark.
And now…
so am I.
I have written.
I have loved.
And finally…
I am learning
how to include myself in that story.
Let this be yours, too.
Let the play,
and the prose,
go on.
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