I have spent this past year resenting mortality. I resent its finality. I resent its uncertainty: What happens after? Where do we go? Is death the end of the road? Or, is there more? If there's more, why don't we have proof? And most of all, why does life have to be so incredibly short??
Yet, I recently discovered through therapy that while life may be short and, as far as we know, we have but one life to live, I have lived numerous lifetimes in just this one.
I started my adult life way ahead of my peers, becoming a teen mom just a few months prior to my sixteenth birthday. I felt proud. I was ahead of the gang, and I was ready for the Real World. Except that I wasn't being real. I didn't know who I really was yet!
So I did the teen mom thing. And I loved it. And I was good at mothering, considering my age.
Before I knew it, I became Mrs. Gibson. I lived in the city. I gained some sophistication. But then, just as quickly, I was a single mom of two in the suburbs. I had my own apartment. I loved that place and still miss it! It was during that time that I battled with drugs and alcohol, but came clean. Just as I came clean and began to learn who I really was, I became distracted; I fell in love and became Mrs. Stone.
During my years as Mrs. Stone, I lived many lifetimes. I was the Earth Mama, giving birth at home, breastfeeding on demand, and reached out to my peers by starting a mother's group for other like-minded Earth Mommies. And then, succumbing to peer pressure, I found Jesus and became a Church Lady.
My Church Lady years were probably the most dysfunctional of my whole life because it kept me from authenticity. It dictated everything about me - and it all conflicted with my truest nature: self-righteousness, political conservatism, wifely submission, and worst of all, it encouraged horribly abusive parenting. I made mistakes I can never make up for. But somehow, I broke free.
Casting aside my church attire and walking away from the dysfunction was good, but it left me sitting alone with myself and I felt empty. Who was I, really? With all the garbage hauled out to the curb, what was left inside of me?? Just a scared little girl in a grown-up world...and a houseful of children who were no longer babies.
So I became reflective...and then self-absorbed. I was on a quest toward self-actualization. I went back to school. But, along with these efforts toward self-improvement, I was also homeschooling my kids - and not very effectively - and struggling daily to define myself in a marriage that was nearing its shelf life. I had chosen a man so much like my father - though I didn't realize it at the time - and was spending precious time and energy resolving my childhood issues of subordination and submission to tyranny; I was learning where to find my voice and how to use it.
I went to school to become a nurse, but then realized that although I had an interest and ability in the field, I would be more authentically myself as a middle school teacher. So I switched gears. By now, we were deep into poverty and the house was going into foreclosure. With only a year to complete before becoming a teacher, I had to drop out. It would have to wait...apparently for another lifetime.
We lost the house. We lived with my daughter for a year. And then one day, I walked out of the marriage. I walked into the nothingness and the everythingness of the Unknown; but I walked out and didn't look back.
I was homeless, but for less than a night; my daughter Christina found me and brought me home to her place. And then a new life began to unfold.
Or was it new? I was still a dependent. I was still a housekeeper. There were still little kids in the household. It was different, and yet it was the same: same job, different boss. Certainly a kinder, more generous boss, but I was still "just a wife."
Back to school, but change in major - again. The car accident left my vision damaged; I wouldn't be able to manage a classroom of adolescents. Instead, I will pursue a Bachelor's degree in psychology - and then a master's degree in community counseling and clinical mental health.
My own mental health improved after quitting my position as Mrs. Stone. School is going well. I will be a great mental health professional. But, just after getting accepted to the Master's degree program, my youngest daughter took her life. The old me disappears in grief; a new me emerges: I am a suicide survivor, a grieving mother, and am forever changed.
I continue to work on my Master's degree as I rush to play Beat the Clock. I may have begun life way ahead of my peers, but right now, I feel as though I have missed the boat. I know myself better than I ever have and have learned that the older I get, the more like myself I become. I am still in a role that keeps me from living in a fully authentic way, but it is functional and it is, as I have learned, all about survival, based upon the choices I have previously made.
I am older, and wiser; but I am wise enough to know that much of my wisdom comes too late; the damage has been done.
So here I am at age fifty, eager to create a career for myself. Seems almost ludicrous at my age. But at the same time, what else have I got going for me? I've reconstructed myself so many times, I think I can do it once more.
One life to live? Yeah, but look how many I've crammed into that one single life!!
