When I was in college, I had dreams of becoming a high powered attorney living in a big city with a big house, a fancy car, and the perfect life. While I was at my part time, minimum wage job, I would daydream of the day I could look around me and see my dreams all reality. I’d really be something then, wouldn’t I?
But, life has a funny way of showing you what you think you want perhaps isn’t really what you want. As I visited law schools, something became increasingly evident. I didn’t want to move away from my hometown where I attended college. I wanted to stay close to my family. I visited several schools and tried to make myself want the dream that I’d spent years planning. I remember standing in a stairwell at Mercer University and the air not wanting to go in and out of my lungs. I wasn’t quite ready to accept the fact that I just didn’t want to be that person. But, when I stood on the grounds of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama for a visit, the one school that admitted me into law school, I hated the thought of being in Birmingham. The traffic was crazy and people drove so fast it made my little country bumpkin self want nothing more than to be at home. That was the day that I packed that dream up and pushed it aside.
I was a senior in college with a major in Political Science. All the work towards that degree seemed logical while I was on the path to the dream but less so when I had changed the dream. What mattered to me then was finishing college, getting married, and starting my family. I didn’t know what kind of work I would do or how I would make a living but I knew it wasn’t with a Juris Doctor. So I scrambled to find a job where I could make myself feel like college had been worth the effort. I floundered for several years, and during this time of floundering, all I wanted was to build my dream house. I wanted to live in the country and have the kind of house where everyone wanted to gather. But then Daddy got sick, I was laid off from my job, and we had to move in with my parents. The dream of home ownership was lightyears away then.
I didn’t know it at the time but what mattered most were the precious years I was able to spend with my dad before he passed. In those years, my oldest son got to know his PaPaw and we committed every day to being the best no matter the circumstances. Knowing that the future had an expiration date on it somehow changed the focus in a way like nothing else. We all know that life is finite and at some point, that expiration date will be coming whether we’re ready or not. I can remember hearing Daddy’s diagnosis and knowing what it meant but not yet willing to believe that he couldn’t beat it. After all, my Daddy could do anything. He didn’t focus on what science said, he made a conscious decision to live life in the present and at the fullest. In between radiation and chemo weeks, we had weekend getaways to the lake, to the flea market, or just about anywhere he felt able to go. What mattered then was making the most of the time we had. I didn’t think much about that big dream house of mine. It became out of focus.
Many years have passed since those days. The dreams through the years were more about climbing the career ladder, making sure my kids would be good kids who didn’t end up in prison or dead, driving a car that didn’t catch fire like the one I had, and buying a house that would suffice as the dream house. But there came a day when the things that I’d worked so hard to achieve just didn’t fill the void. The messiness of life and the choices I’d made caused me to question whether or not the path I chose was the right one. Should I have gone to law school and did something that, at the time, frightened me? Should I go back to school and find something else to do? Should I have gotten married right after college? Did I settle for a life that I could have lived because of fear? Everything seemed illogical and I felt off kilter. What mattered before didn’t seem to matter at all anymore, and I couldn’t quite fix it.
My dreams were crumbling; the facade I’d spent so long to build was not what I thought it was after all. I suffered a broken relationship. I left my “dream house.” I moved in to a two bedroom apartment in the middle of town. I signed a lease almost two years ago that at the time, I wasn’t quite sure how I’d pay. I was walking through the motions of living but merely existing. To some extent, I still am. What mattered to me was really just getting out of bed, getting a shower, going to work, and making it back home each day. Some days, it was an Olympic sport.
To say I’ve healed would be a lie. I fight the urge to become bitter day over day, night over night. What matters to me now is finding meaning in the simplest of things. The house, the car, the job…none of those made me whole. The closet full of designer purses didn’t make me feel warm inside. (Although I must say, the smell of good leather can’t be beat.) I’ve been left longing for something that I can’t quite put my finger on. Through it all, my personal relationship with God has been tested. There have been times where I could just imagine he was tugging me along, despite my kicking and screaming. Perhaps you have to go through the field of cactus to get to the land of plenty. But I felt like I’d gone through enough of those fields, enough of the valleys in the shadow of death. Time out, Lord. It shouldn’t be this hard.
Perspective is something I lacked. I saw my own bed of thorns and thought it was the worst. I wanted to take a hammer and break a few walls, shout at the top of my lungs, and just show the world how I felt. I thought nothing could be worse than the frustration and anxiety I felt. My reality was the only one that seemed as bad and I couldn’t imagine feeling any worse. Life sometimes likes to throw things at you like the infomercials, “but wait! There’s more!” That skewed perspective didn’t help with this recent health scare. I fought the urge to ask the universe, “what’s next?” I am not prepared for the answer although I know it can be one of two things, infinitely good or tragically bad.
But a week or so ago, I realized that while my reality may hurt like a doggone kidney stone, it is not the worst. As I visited with a friend in the waning last days of their life, I saw that finite future again front and center. Although the date of my own may not yet be known, there is an end. My friend will meet the end sometime soon and as they lie in the bed with a bag of regrets, I wonder if they wish they’d spent more time with the things that mattered to them. The days race by for my friend, drawing nearer to the finish line. As they do for me, too. My finish line may not be in the forefront of my mind because I’m not in a hospital bed, refusing any more chemo. But, it’s there. Date and time unknown but nonetheless on its way.
What matters to me is shifting. I thought I wanted the dream house, the big job, the fancy car. Turns out, what matters to me is quite a bit simpler. I want to make a difference in this world. I want people to remember the kindness of my soul and the ways my eyes dance when I laugh. I want to spend time with my Mama and my Aunt Ruby, going on new adventures that will be written in my soul’s memory. I want to see my oldest son find his path in life and pursue a job that makes him happy. I want to see my youngest son graduate from high school and follow his dreams. (We are both horribly bad at math, so please keep his algebra grade in your prayers.) I want to ride through the woods with the windows down and the smell of pine needles in my nose. I want to sit beside the fire on a crisp fall night, gazing into the sparks as they seek the sky. I want to walk barefooted through shallow creeks with stone beds to watch the fish jump away from hooks with bait. I want to watch the sun set in as many places on earth as possible, and do the same when it rises each morning. I want to watch the skies at night on a sandy shore for a chance at seeing a shooting star. I want to make things with my hands until callouses form and I can teach my skills to the younger generations. I want to put the fork in my mouth and think to myself there is nothing better than this. And then, then I want to say “but wait, there’s more.”
Messpot Diaries 