Remembering and Looking Forward

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell"

I've got lots of time on my hands. Time to sit and think and look at life. I've been looking at where I am, where I've come from, how I got here. To me, it seems so clear that the life I'm living has come about largely because, at some point, I became willing to take a chance on "possibility."

There really was nothing about me, growing up, that would have told anyone that I'd take this road. At least, it seems to me, as I look back at the child I was, I don't see it. I was quiet and serious, bright and skeptical, looking at the world through eyes that saw and questioned. As the oldest, I took on responsibilities beyond my years in a household that was "Better Homes and Gardens" perfect on the outside, and chaotic behind the closed doors. I parented the younger ones and tried to protect and defend my brothers from the depredations of parents who were too often lost in alcoholic rages to guide and order their world for them. Junior high and High school brought the torments of adolescence to one too tall and too thin, too shy and too damned smart. I didn't date, didn't party, didn't dance, didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't kiss, neck, pet, or hang out with a gang of friends. I was the quintessential "ugly girl at seventeen." I could factor a polynomial, but couldn't make small talk to save my life. I kept my head down and my grades up, and headed off to engineering college with a scholarship and an intact hymen...

When I met the "husband to be" in my freshman year at college, he seemed nice. He also seemed like a ticket out of the family from hell. My parents raised a fuss, but once I managed to turn up pregnant, that put an end to most of the objections. They wouldn't pay for anything having to do with the wedding, wouldn't allow my brothers to attend, and my dad wouldn't walk with me at the ceremony, but other than that... Two babies by the time I was 23 years old, and I was back in line with what I'd always been told I was supposed to be doing: married, mommy-ing, working that brain of mine doing surveying/drafting/computer programming, making a life for myself. Nevermind that the "husband" who had seemed so nice had turned out to be a bit of a disappointment on a number of fronts. I'd been well schooled -- love, honor, obey, 'til death do us part, etc., etc., etc. I was big on keeping promises.

And then there was that voice that whispered in my mind about being controlled, about being taken, about being hurt. Dark and insistent and exciting and scary. I knew that voice was bad and wrong and needed to be vanquished. And the "husband" was more than happy to reassure me that I was right about that -- bad and sick and perverse...

Twenty plus years, I worked and raised my kids and kept the "husband" in line and finished my college education and clawed my way up the corporate structures of the oil and gas industry, playing corporate games with the "good old boys" of the oil patch. The voice in my head kept after me, and I steadfastly sang the la la song with my hands over my ears.

And then the kids were raised. Grown. As best as I could, they were launched on their own paths. For better or worse, they are the people they will be. Not perfect, but done. I'll stand by the work I did in the mommy leagues. Not a doctor or lawyer in the pair, but at least one is good and decent and honest. The other is a mess, but Dear Lord, I did what I could... and she is alive.

The "husband?" There too, I did what I could. For a really long time. As honestly as I could. It never, ever made an ounce of difference. The mistake I made at the very beginning, remained always and forever a mistake. I didn't know, on the day I met him, who I was, and so I couldn't tell him the truth and he bought a relationship that he couldn't possibly live with or keep up with in the long haul. In the end, it came to a point where it was finished.

We have language that says that marriages that end "fail." Ours couldn't succeed. It had nothing to stand on from the beginning. We were too badly paired. Like trying to hitch a giraffe and an alligator in tandem. We should have cut each other lose long before.

Before it was done though, there was THIS. This new life. This amazing POSSIBILITY. There was a single moment when a connection was made and the glimmer of the possible happened. Master and T came into my life, entirely by chance, it seemed, although I don't believe that for a moment. I know, in my soul, that we were supposed to be here together. What was chancy was the "whether" of any of us being willing to reach for that connection, being willing to seize the possibility of it.

I will never forget the whirlwind of coming together. Of the conversation over IM when I said to Him, "it will probably take a couple of years for us to work all the details out and actually move to Cincinnati." He was adamant. It foreshadowed my life. He simply said, "Do you think we are getting younger? Get here next summer." And so began the three month race to sell the house and pack the household goods and quit the jobs and say goodbye to incredulous family and friends and move to the One who pulled me inexorably to "get rid of the life I'd planned so that I could have the life that was waiting for me."

I am here, now, fussing over this waiting time again, but remembering THAT waiting time. I know that waiting comes to an end and life begins again in glorious whirling joy.

I am glad for this life that has come to me because I was willing to let go of the planned and take a chance on the possible.

swan