From My Feet To My Knees And Back Again
I wrote the following blog post on March 6 of 2020, a full 10 days before I began quarantining in response to coronavirus, which was a few days before it was ordered by the state of California. It is wild to read this now, in mid-July, after so much has taken place in the world and in my own consciousness over the last 4 months. It has been a jam-packed year, to say the least. The grief and pain I felt in the early months of 2020 has been felt by everyone to different extents, personally and collectively. Many have felt it much more intensely than I have. In some ways, the fact that we are all experiencing it together, though in different ways and at different times and to different extents, makes it more comforting. In some ways it makes it more painful. The pain of the first couple months of this year, while it devastated me, feels minuscule now. But as I read back, I am reminded of how intense it was, and I share it now mostly just to share it and to give it a voice, but also for the learning, as a reminder to myself and others what good can come of pain. In many ways, I think those early months of pain and growth prepared me for what came next, and I’m grateful.
The beginning of 2020 has started out rough for me, to say the least. The last two months have been utter chaos and devastation, bringing me to my knees again and again. The grief I have felt is reminiscent of the periods of my life in which I’ve experienced the greatest losses. Deaths and breakups. There’s been a lot of crying.
These last two months have been different though, than other times in my life in which I’ve experienced loss. These recent grievances and disappointments have been accompanied by incredible expansion. The pain has been condensed, intense. The growth has matched it.
Most recently I crashed and totaled my beloved Nissan Cube that I had for 9 years. This car has meant everything to me, has been a home when no building felt like one, a source of income when I drove for Lyft, a space in which I have bawled my eyes out, screamed at the top of my lungs in rage, danced, sang, explored. My car was weirdly shaped and felt not only like a box of metal that helped me get from place to place, but also like an appendage to my body and even like a pet. When I found out it was totaled, I cried for an entire day and paced around my apartment like a zombie, completely unsure of how to find any sense of normalcy without it. I relied heavily upon that car, and I loved it the way you love anything or anyone.
There’s something about losing so much at once - my car, among other things, changing relationships, the way I see myself, my entire sense of the reality of my life and how I relate to the world and the people around me - that has left me no choice but to surrender. Without a car I am forced to move more slowly, more intentionally.
Tonight as I lay in bed, I reflected on my life currently and I saw myself walking a labyrinth. For most of my life, I think, I have walked through life as if it were a maze. I was looking for the prize at the center, unsure of which direction to go, feeling lost, getting caught in the trap of hope and disappointment as I thought I’d found my way until a dead end revealed itself to me. It’s a stressful life, the maze life. But the last few months have felt more like a labyrinth. Just walking, while shit hits the fan. Going forward, feeling the pain, the anger, the grief. Crying and walking, yelling and walking, fighting and walking. The labyrinth only has one path; you just follow it. The maze is revealed to be only in the mind. As so much has fallen away and as so much has likewise emerged, I feel like I can finally see my feet, moving one in front of the other, just going. The fear is gone. The frustration has dissipated. The illusion that I have control over my life no longer fools me. I do what I have to do. I put one foot in front of the other. Where it leads me no longer feels like my business.