Okay, so now I know no one is reading this. You don’t write about your friend dying, then not post the next day and hear nothing if people are actually reading it, but thats ok. Things are constantly changing and today when I sat down to write, I did it, not out of accountability to a readership but because I wanted to and I was called to.
Yesterday, I wasn’t laid up with grief, too sad or tired to write, I just got busy and forgot. Thursday I was out of commission. I grieved hard, cried and cried and wandered, exhausted, around my house in senseless circles. I processed my regrets out loud and I owned up to my failures, too hurt to be embarrassed. By the end I was exhausted but attempting a virtual game of Mindtrap with Sam, as a distraction. It was only the 2nd or third card he had pulled and it had a riddle on it about a person named Ari. Because I don’t believe in coincidences, and because the chances of that happening right them were so small, I knew she had to be behind it. I imagined her laughing fondly wth me, in her casual way when hard things were happening around her, like, “ah man, its gonna be ok you guys, I love you.” It was one of those moments that reinforces my suspicion that there is a spirit and it does live on and that she was sending me a message. She taught me something right then that I will keep personal, between me and her. The lesson and the image I have of her, bold and beautiful and booming with laughter settled into a rightful place in my heart, a resource and inspiration for a long time to come. When I woke up the next morning the pain was dull and already healing.
Today, I listened to a little teaser for a new podcast called “Sugar Calls.” Cheryl Strayed interviews one of her former teachers and writer, George Sanders. He reads a letter he wrote to his students during all this and at the beginning he talks about us keeping record and asks us what stories we will craft out of this time, what personal dramas are going on behind all of our doors. He calls upon us to take record and reminds me of the value of this process- “The world is like a sleeping tiger.. sometimes it wakes up when someone we loves dies or someone breaks our heart or there’s a pandemic.. but this is far from the first time this tiger has come awake… and always there have been writers to observe it… and later make some sort of sense of it or at least bear witness to it. It’s good for the world, for a writer to bear witness and its good for the writer too, especially if she can bear witness with love and humor and despite it all, some fondness for the world. All of this to say, there is still work to be done and now more than ever.” At the end of the podcast, Cheryl says that talking to writers has given her some comfort and so she will keep doing it, and I have to admit, hearing from writers, especially in letter form, has been not only been a comfort for me but another gentle nudge toward a place I’ve known for a long time, but have been too afraid to accept.
One of the things I was regretting in grief was not letting Ari in as a friend. On Thursday, that was heavier on me, I took on full responsibility, as you will in the white-hot fire and raw burn of grief. When we first opened at the karaoke place, and we were forming as a team, I felt the very familiar sense of not belonging and the reticence that comes with it. I recognized it early and I reached out to a few people, was honest about why I was struggling to be myself in our group trainings. They were understanding and that helped. As time went on the problems we faced as a new business over-shadowed any personal discomfort and bonded us in way. Everyone I worked with were such characters, loving, “you do you, live your best life,” kind of people. It was designed like that by the people who hired us. It is part of the business model- to encourage self-expression. I was proud to be a part of it and I felt happy to go to work, most days. But as time went on, there were issues, especially behind the bar, with consistent standards and conflicting expectations. Management lacked the ability to hold us accountable, more concerned with what they called bigger problems. I recognized the fragility of a forming team from my Outward Bound days and I advocated of support in certain areas but was ultimately not heard. The team descended, people started to quit, point fingers, fake it, talk shit. It was all about being liked. Clicks formed and all my issues with belonging came back up. I energetically slammed the door on my co-workers. This is a pattern. I so badly want to belong but it is difficult for me to feel safe in family-like systems, especially when there is a lack of control and alcohol abuse involved. This is THE definition of the service industry and you’d think I would’ve learned a long time ago that these dynamics were not going to work for me. Yet these are the systems I find myself drawn to, out of a sense of well… belonging. They reinforce the patterns of my upbringing and then when I push them away to protect myself, they reinforce the pattern of not belonging. Its like being stuck in one of those mirror rooms you always see in the movies at carnivals or in a maze where you just go back and forth. Comedy is the same way; I am constantly leaning back in any relationship within any group. It just feels incredibly unsafe and it was contributing factor to the distance I put between myself and Ari.
It always, all comes back to belonging. Just ask Brene Brown and her fans. I know that I won’t ever forward in life until I stop being afraid of it. Even “We took to the Woods,” ended on that note. I finished the book over lunch today and in the last chapter Louise writes, “sometimes we may have to figure a little closely to pay the taxes and outfit the kids and put the groceries in for winter; but the things that matter- our feeling of entity, our sense of belonging-are never in danger here.”
Just today, on a long walk I thought, maybe what I need to open up to the possibility of belonging is one, the recognition that I am leaning away and two, then a group where I feel safe to lean in, where I don’t have to fight or wonder. A group that I can trust. If I could find that and feel ok in it, it would be one of my life’s greatest accomplishments. Maybe is starts right here, on my pink desk chair, which I haggled from $30 down to $25, on principle. Maybe thats why my cat Fabs has taken to sitting here either when I am not or on my lap when I am. Maybe its why I have been mostly ok with this isolation thing. At the beginning of the podcast Cheryl says, “This is what we have been training for,” in reference to being told to stay home all day. Maybe I can find a way to belonging through this.