YEAR FORTY:Die to be Reborn

I didn’t want to die. Let me be clear about that from the start. But I suppose it was inevitable.

April: Earnest Human Creates A Masterplan

Let me back up. At thirty-nine, I was happy. I had a good marriage with Dan, a man who made me laugh. Our four-year-old twins, Kalvin and Grace, were healthy, feisty and very fun. I adored them, beyond comprehension really. After three miscarriages, five rounds of IVF and two gestational surrogates, I took not one single day with them for granted. My parents and brother were doing well, work was stimulating, I had good friends and an efficient cross-fit routine that fed my endorphin habit and kept me in shape. I had a dog who was pure love, a funny cat, two horses, hiking trails out my back door, and the freedom to pursue what I wanted to do.

And I deeply loved life, had always deeply loved life. I was good at it, for one. I had a couple of Olympic medals to prove it, two degrees from two fancy schools, and a life coaching certificate. I could sail a sailboat, play a cello concerto, write a book, create a financial model, hit a tennis ball, ski a black diamond. But more importantly, life and I had recently survived a serious blow to our relationship, evil in the form a sociopathic night nurse who hurt Kalvin and Grace as infants. The abuse, the excruciating criminal justice system, the guilt that threatened to eat me alive for not protecting them, we had survived life’s dark side with an even deeper more mature love of life and an acute appreciation for the outrageous privilege of being alive. Life was beautiful. And I got to experience it.

Oh sure, there were times when I was startled by my life, when I couldn’t quite fully grasp the fact that the two precious little souls who sat like me and talked like me and called me Momma were actually mine to steward. I was surprised that my lifelong restless urge for freedom, adventure and space was now met with an equally strong urge to stay put and sink deep into the moments of my life: the sun hitting the highlights of my kids’ hair, waking up to the sound of little feet on hard wood floors followed by, “hi momma,” our dog Timber’s smile as she rested her head on my husband’s lap.

Life was good. So I was turning forty. I’d been rounding up for a few years, getting used to the idea in my head. Forty was just a number, until the thought occurred to me that the next big number was fifty, I’d have start rounding to fifty! Holy shit, how did I end up fifty years old? That’s when I started to notice things, like how Swedish fish unpredictably and tragically tasted too sweet. Injuries took longer to heal. 8:30pm was a reasonable bedtime. And I had bizarre wrinkly skin on my knees, a foreign growth I noticed when stretching my calves upside down.

It was happening, life was happening. It was time to get my shit together, epically together once and for all. I wanted to be the active author of my life, I wanted to enjoy each moment instead of worrying or planning. I wanted to live super aware, super alive. I mean, people die at my age. Phone calls now included scary words like miscarriage, divorce, bankruptcy, cancer and death. I wanted to do life awesome, live perfectly in the unfolding moments of my days, achieve bigger and loftier goals with perfect execution. I wanted my life to be a masterpiece, a living, breathing work of art. And I wanted to enjoy the ride.

And so over the course of a month, I attacked how to live ‘awesome’ in lists and sub-lists.

List # 1, Important To Me:Spiritual practice, Kalvin & Grace, Dan, Nature, Learning, Friends, Family, Writing, Simplification, Reading, Exercise.

List #2, My Strengths: Learner. Achiever. Input. Relator. Empathy.

List #3, Myers-Briggs:Introversion. Intuition. Feeling. Perceiving.

List #4, Core Desired Feelings:Connected. Guided. Grateful. Inspired. Peaceful. Engaged. Free. Alive. Delighted. Unencumbered. Joyful. Awestruck. Present. Excited. Free. Clean. Free. Joy. Free. Spacious. Free.

List #5, More Of…:Learning, nature, writing, reading, seeing beauty, loving the world, growth, wisdom, poetry, travel, music, freedom, connected relationships, freedom, perfect moments, authenticity, freedom, freedom.

And each list had its sub lists. My sweet human, she was so noble, so courageous, so earnest.

List #1, Part A: Spiritual Practice.Recite three full pages of mantras neatly divided into categories such as, My Relationship To Life, How To Live, Owning Responsibility as the Sole Author of My Life. Keep a gratitude journal, happiness journal, best moment journal and regular journal. Read designated list of poetry, books and blogs. Meditate. Consult Bhagavad Gita cards, Mother’s Wisdom Deck cards, Scared Rebels oracle cards, Spiritual Path cards, Horse Wisdom cards; all of which sat unopened on my bookshelf.

List #2, Part B: Kalvin and Grace.Be at all times completely attentive to their needs without indulging or giving them the sense that they’re the center of the universe. Develop and teach an emotional intelligence curriculum. Be a super awesome fun mom, present, energetic, thoughtful, conscious, aware, engaged, nurturing, soft, compassionate, firm, joyful, loving, steady, quiet, patient, and strong. Never feel guilt. Don’t yell, explain. Listen, because what they say matters. Create family traditions. Expose them to swimming, karate, tennis, music. All must be done in order to raise thoughtful, creative, passionate, optimistic, grit, value driven, resilient, capable, not entitled, confident kids.

On the morning of my fortieth birthday, I printed out my plan. My perfect deep, joyful engagement with life was all laid out in black and white numbered lists, broken into yearly, weekly, daily SMART goals, driven by positive psychology, religion, poetry and the self-help aisle.

I held my masterpiece. Instead of feeling joy and peace, I felt a deep and glaring hole of desperation open in my chest. I felt intensely claustrophobic, trapped in the lines of the document and my life and the similarity to years before. Groundhog Day was turning into Groundhog Years, and Decades. My life.

Anger. I felt extreme anger. I wanted freedom.

Nothing, I told myself. I will do nothing! It was the most radical rebellious contrarian thing I could think of in the moment. No striving, no achieving, no progress, no pushing, no learning; I would do nothing. With some effort, I ripped the document in half. “Fuck it. Fuck fuck fuck it.” With no shortage of contempt, I ripped the pieces in half again and watched them fall to the floor. Fuck. You.

There was nothing wrong with my life before I made the decision that would lead to my death. But that’s where the story begins in earnest. Because in the briefest of moments in the empty and still space after the destruction, a strange word appeared, God.