I can’t believe I haven’t written a post since early September. Once my semester started, I felt like I had no time or energy to come up for air and think about anything that wasn’t my coursework or my thesis revisions. But a lot of things happened, both externally and internally, and every time I sat down to write a new post for January I lost my train of thought, so I thought I would go back and do a brief retrospective.
It took me a long time to adjust to Ava going to university. She was loving her classes, making new friends, getting fabulous grades and overall thriving in her first three months as a theatre student. I couldn’t believe how different our family seemed with one less person here. Ava’s absence made me keenly aware of the concept of negative space – noticing and appreciating what isn’t there and how it forms and shapes your experience as much as who and what is actually there.
I started to realize that without her, I felt lonely as the sole woman in a house with two males. I wrote about this, in my Creative Nonfiction grad class, but I was attempting to understand something as I was living it out, which is always a challenge. It’s better to let some time pass, so you can see the contours of the thing with more clarity. I’m slowly getting there, but the key takeaway here is that I learned to voice what I need from Jason and from William. I practiced saying, “This is not enough for me. I need more connection, more interaction, more depth of meaning in our relationships.”
Saying that was like flying for me. It was exhilarating. I felt untethered, free, unafraid to lean into the hard conversations in a way that was new and significant. I asked for and expected others to change for me, instead of me bending into awkward relational shapes for others as I’ve done for most of my life. Something about this process opened me up. It shook my systems, disrupting old patterns, making things strained for a time but ultimately helped me to change in a profound and lasting manner.
A favourite meme that I looked at while writing my thesis this summer says, “Some things break your heart but fix your vision.” That was my fall 2022. My heart cracked but then healed, and now I’m different. I also got hit by a truck (literally) in late November. I was at a dead stop at a light, when a tandem semi-trailer truck rolled back and hit me. Hard. My neck and back got all screwed up, not to mention my beautiful pristine Rav 4 which has never had a scratch on her until this collision.
Thankfully, I’m better now with some chiro, massage and physio appointments, and my vehicle will be fixed, but in the aftermath of the accident I realized something with a newfound clarity. You can do everything right, like sitting quietly in a turn lane waiting for the light to change, and still get hit. As hard as I try, I cannot see around every corner to plan for every possible scenario. I’m tired of wasting energy on that shit.
I turned 50 in December, and I feel like I’m just getting started. I’m determined to stop trying for hospital corners. It’s time to invite more emotional mess. To stop asking for permission outside of myself. I’m longing for openness, meaning, depth, fun, laughter, adventure. Being afraid and careful got me to this point. So did doing a lot of people’s inner work for them (or at least trying to). That’s over now. Some things break your heart but fix your vision, and I’m so grateful to be able to see with more clarity as I tackle a new decade of my life.