the very very beginning

I sensed a grand ‘something-to say’ dwelling within & I patiently waited for it to rise to the surface. Here is what surfaced.


“Because you're listening.
Out there,
Somewhere,
I can feel you listening.”

While I am a subscriber to the idea that every given moment, every choice & decision come to pass, every habitual development, every whim you believe you’ve had, every bit of your history brings you to exactly where you are today & that you’d never be in this exact spot if even the tiniest of things had gone differently, I can still believe at the same time that there are certain small legs of your journey that have a beginning, that started at one moment. These ideas are not mutually exclusive in my experience. All of my life has led to this moment. But at the same time, I know the exact beginning that led to THIS moment.

It was indeed a moment to remember. Small though it might have been, it was large in a cosmic sense. It was an everyday moment that in the core of my existence meant more than it did when the girl down the street, or across the ocean for that matter, experienced it. See, in this every day, nothing ground breaking, happens all the time moment, I began a journey. I took a first step & had no idea what I had indeed ventured into.

My moment of beginning? I finished a book. Yes, just like you did a day ago or a month ago or whatever, all I did was read the last page in a book I couldn’t put down & close the cover. Done. Life changed in an instant. This book, one that many loved down to their core & one that others claimed was self-indulgent, was the catalyst. And I find it humorous the varying opinions of this book. No, correction. I find it humorous that people decided to call it self-indulgent. The reason for this is three-fold.

One, anyone who writes a book, no matter the topic, is indulging some part of themselves. I mean hello? Writing & publishing is different than just writing. Publishing a book means that you have decided you have something to share that others might want to read. I have no problem with this. I think it’s true, we love to read others stories & their musings. However, to claim that a book is particularly self-indulgent because it focuses on the author’s journey, when all book are inherently somewhat self-indulgent, is redundant. It’d be like saying, “Geez, that autobiography is really self-indulgent.” What’d you expect? You bought an AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

Two, it is humorous that the person who is writing a review, who apparently thinks their opinion of books is so much more thoughtful or intelligent or experienced than anyone else’s, should be so hypocritical. You see, simply by putting your opinion out there, as though it matters, you’ve indulged a reflection you have about yourself.

Three, and most important, thank God for self-indulgence! Seriously. If no one else is going to indulge who you are, or decide your story is worthy of being told, you better do so for yourself. If you are waiting around for the world to notice you & decide that your story is worth investing in, you’ll be waiting a long time. You must find value in your own story. You are after all, all you’ve got. You are in charge of deciding this life of yours & if you think you have nothing to share with the world, then that’s your problem. I mean it. Invest & indulge who you are. You’ll be grateful you did!

So. I put down this ‘self-indulgent’ book & looked across the room at the-one-who-I-was-trying-to-make-the-One-but-was-so-clearly-NOT-THE-one & said, “We have a problem.” He sat and looked at me, waiting for what usually came next: my fix-it plan, Alexa to the rescue, here’s how we solve it. Instead, I sat & thought. Then corrected, “No, not we. There is a problem. That’s all I know. It may not even be about us. But there is a problem & I cannot point a finger at you because I’m actually not sure that the problem isn’t with me.” Long pause. No reaction. “All I know is, this can’t be my life.”

However, I knew the truth. It was indeed my life & I had made conscious choices to build it. Only now I was beginning to see that I hadn’t really taken enough time with the foundation. You cannot build anything with a shoddy foundation. Cracks don’t take long to develop. Cute furniture & a coat of paint only go so far. Yes, what I had built was crumbling. I could feel it about to collapse & I could either just wait around for it or I could take a look at what I had created & try to rebuild. I knew that the problem might lay deeper than the bricks & mortar I had used in building this life. I was drawn again to the foundation- me. What had I done for me? (I kept thinking that the person who wrote that song asking what have you done for me lately, either had a great foundation & did plenty for themselves first, or like so many of us, was ready to point the finger at someone else for their problems.)

So I put the book down & made a choice. I would work on my foundation. I can tell you now that I did some VERY valuable work on the foundation. However, I can also say that I attempted to fix problems at the bottom while keeping the top there, hoping once I repaired the fundamental issues, the rest of what I had built would be fine, would finally look like the dream house I wanted. What I was forgetting was that if the foundation was the problem, then that means I was the problem. Meaning the builder was the problem. Meaning that, at some point, I’d have to face the fact that I was building a life that fit the messed-up builder, not me. Ah, but that would only become clear later. At this point, I took a wonderful first step in rebuilding myself by thinking of all those things I’d always wanted to do but never had a reason. I thought a great way to really solidify who I was, was to indulge those things that my heart sang out for.

I put my book down & headed to the computer. I had always seen pictures of people building houses for those less fortunate & thought that I wanted to be in one of those pictures. I can honestly say I am a person who loves helping others, but I can honestly also say the draw of wanting to do this was not that deep. I really just wanted to be able to say I had done it. Sure, I wanted to help. But really I just for some reason wanted to be one of those people in the hard hat pounding a nail into a foundation. I would later learn that this desire did come from that place of wanting to help others, but at that moment when I went to the computer, it was about helping myself. And what better way to work on my foundation than to put hammer to nail & build a darn house. If that couldn’t teach me how to build my life, well, then, hmm, well I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

When I went to the website & looked at the list of places to go, the first that popped up was Alaska. Done. I knew there was no way out. It was a sign. It was my destiny. I don’t care how you view those life signs, but it was something saying, ‘YOU HAVE TO DO THIS. DON’T BACK OUT.’ because most likely I would’ve found a reason not to do it. Maybe it was my future self making sure I didn’t let go of what I was slowly catching onto. Whatever it was I could not ignore it. Seeing Alaska made it the decision perfectly clear. Before clicking on ‘Apply’, I thought of the back folder in the file cabinet in my overstuffed closet that I hadn’t used since college. In that folder was an Alaskan Vacation Guide. I had been sitting in my basement room of a house full of practical strangers I lived with in my last year of college when I saw an ad for Alaska. I was entranced. I dreamed of when I would get there. I imagined feeling whole (this was also a time when I was feeling there was ‘a problem’). At the end of the commercial flashed a number to call to receive free Alaska materials & guides & info. I immediately dialed. I received the packet about a week or so later, looked through it all with a wishful heart & then stuffed it in the last file folder in my file cabinet, sure that I’d come back to it soon enough. Then life happened. I never did get back to it. So nearly 6 years later, I clicked ‘Apply’ on the trip that was a Women’s-Only trip (ensuring it would be about ME, as I couldn’t even be tempted to ask if he’d like to come with me), closed the computer, went to the closet & got out my Alaska planning materials (that the boyfriend-at-the-time had never even known about) & decided to work on me.