Shadows

On big sadness, being a good girl, and making up fictional stories to make sense of my feelings.

Welcome back to Wild Cozy Free! So glad to have you here.

In some ways, it feels scarier to hit '“publish” this week, than it did last week. The time for introductions is over, and it’s time to get down into the nitty gritty. It’s time to let my wild, cozy, free self roam free, like I said I would.

But make no mistake - just because I’m writing this, doesn’t mean I’m not afraid.

I’m thinking a lot about Brené Brown’s second “Unlocking Us” podcast episode “Day 2.”

It’s funny because day two or whatever that middle space is for your own process is when we’re in the dark, the doors close behind us, we’re too far in to turn around and not close enough to the end to see the light. In my work with the military and veterans, they talk about this kind of dark middle piece as “the point of no return.” It’s an aviation term coined by pilots for the point in the flight where you have too little fuel to turn around and return to the originating airfield, so you have to go forward.

I don’t want to turn around. And I couldn't, even if I wanted to. So onwards we go.

This week, I’m diving right into the truly unfiltered stuff, straight from the notes app as promised. This piece didn’t even start off as an essay, it was a middle of the night musing that slowly grew and grew, until it bloomed into what you’re about to read.

It’s around 2AM on a Saturday night as I lay on the couch, writing this in the note section of my phone. I fell asleep watching TV around 6:30pm or so, and only woke up moments ago. I may have honestly fallen asleep before picking a show to watch - we’ve all been there.

I have a perfectly comfortable bed in the next room. I somewhat routinely fall asleep out here for a few hours, before transferring myself to my bedroom like a child who fell asleep watching a movie. It takes at least an hour for me to fall back asleep once I’m away from the snuggly cocoon of my couch.

Today, I let myself rest here. I end up staying for the whole night. I’m sick, and this is the first time I’ve felt anything resembling comfort in 24 hours.

I lose my mind a little when I’m sick. I get mad at my body for “failing me.” I feel gross and lethargic and useless. I feel guilty for resting in the middle of the day.  I convince myself that I’ll never be healthy or do anything fun again. I’m not exaggerating at all when I eventually comfort myself by saying “your life isn’t over, you won’t be stuck in this apartment forever, you’re just resting a bit.”

I had to miss my dear friends birthday party, and spent the day inhaling soup and lo mein on the couch instead. I hate that I didn’t get to celebrate her. I wanted to bounce around on the dance floor, smiling and swaying full of joy and gratitude for this amazing friend of mine. I am always mad at my body when I get sick, but I’m extra mad at it today. Disappointed, sad, moody, and sick.

So sick that I don’t have the energy to tell myself “adults sleep in their beds. You should get up and brush your teeth and wash your face and tuck yourself in.” I’m already tucked in. God knows I’m not the only person who has ever fallen asleep with unbrushed teeth every now and then. My face will be fine. I let myself rest in my cozy nook on the couch. I let myself be.

I can’t fall back asleep, so I listen to the audiobook of Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle. I’ve already read it, but I’m enjoying revisiting it. The first time I picked it up, I was going through a horrible breakup, and raced through the book voraciously, in need of validation that my vulnerable, messy feelings weren’t unique to me alone. That I wasn’t defective, just human.

For anyone unfamiliar* with the story of Love Warrior, Glennon’s 2nd book, check out the clip below.

*And for anyone unfamiliar with Glennon Doyle in general, she is also the author of Carry On, Warrior, and Untamed. She also used to write a blog called Momastery in the early days, as her first foray into the personal essay world. I frequently think of her early writing days when I’m writing myself.

Glennon is now married to soccer star Abby Wambach**, and records a bi-weekly podcast with Abby and Sister that I highly, highly recommend (sister is only Glennon’s sister (real name Amanda) but Glennon and Abby call her sister.))

**Glennon didn’t leave Craig, her ex-husband, immediately after the events of Love Warrior - that’s important to the story. Okay sorry, this whole post isn’t about the book, I just really love it. Highly recommend. Back to my middle of the night musings.

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While listening to Love Warrior, I stare up at the ceiling and notice all the shadowy lines up there. I take a picture, which comes out looking like an abstract photo developed in a dark room. The room is dark and my phone automatically turned on the long exposure setting. I change the setting and take another photo. The automatic flash comes on this time. There are no shadowy lines in the second photo, no depth. The ceiling looks remarkably clean; perfect; like someone just applied a fresh coat of white paint.

One image is pristine and perfect.

The other is barely recognizable, but far more interesting to me.

Two pictures of the exact same ceiling.

One taken over a longer period of time, and one in a quick bright flash.

I’ve posed for many, many pictures throughout my life. Every stage is well documented. I’ve smiled through many quick bright flashes.

I wonder what the long exposure photos would reveal. Would my own hidden shadows be visible?

I remember a lot about my childhood. Not every single place and thing, but certainly how I felt. The way I took in the world, as a tiny sensitive soul. I was respectful, kind, and behaved. A typical good girl.

Preschool is one of the only times I remember feeling really comfortable, socially, in a school environment. I would go on to quickly develop a great deal of social anxiety and shyness that caused me to be quiet and withdrawn a lot of the time throughout K - 12th grade.

But in preschool, I was friends with everyone. Popular. A social butterfly. Happy and free.

My babysitter walked me there every morning. The school was a short distance from my apartment building, maybe 15 minutes. We always picked up my best friend along the way, since she lived just a block away from the building. Once we arrived, we were greeted by all of our friends. All was well.

And yet one day, I felt overwhelmingly sad. It was around snack time. I remember a flood of tears rolling down my face before I could help it. I cried a lot, as a child, but usually at more opportune moments. Everyone rushed to comfort me. All my little friends gathered around me, cooing and telling me that everything was okay. I knew that wasn’t true. I felt terrible. It wasn’t the last time that this feeling of dread would arrive out of nowhere.

My teacher ushered me away from my friends. She calmly asked “Why are you crying? What happened?” I distinctly remember looking at her confused, and thinking “Nothing happened. I don’t need a reason. I’m just sad.”

But I didn’t say that. I was “mature for my age” and knew that “crying just to cry” was not as tolerable in this level of preschool as it was when I was younger. I knew I was getting older, and that I would be in kindergarten next year. I knew that I needed a reason to be crying this much.

“Well, I miss my mom.” That seemed like a decent reason to be sad, and make a bit of a scene. It may or may not have been true. I did deal with a lot of separation anxiety. The teacher must have told me that I would see her later after school. I must have sensed from her response that missing my mom wasn’t quite a good enough reason to be having an emotional fit like this. So I said,

“Well, actually, she went away. And she won’t be back until December.”

It wasn’t even Halloween yet. It was a complete lie, but it seemed like a better reason to be upset.

I was right. It was an amazing reason. A perfect story.

My teacher took complete pity on me. This poor girl, separated from her mother until December. And her mother hadn’t even given the school any warning? Horrible. Tragic. Unthinkable. The teacher hugged me, and I was free to cry again and feel all of my big, sad-for-no-reason feelings. I probably got an extra snack too.

I eventually calmed down, I’m sure, and went on with the rest of the day. I forgot about the lie, or just stopped thinking about it. However, I instantly remembered when dismissal arrived and my mother appeared to pick me up. She didn’t always pick me up. It was often my sitter. But today, on the day I had told this audacious lie, there she was.

My teacher said something like, “Oh hi! What a nice surprise to see you! We didn’t expect you back so soon.”

My mother was obviously confused, and asked what the teacher meant. The teacher explained what I had shared while crying that morning. I looked at my teacher’s expectant face, my mother’s surprised face, and then at the floor. At this point in retelling the story, my mother always recalls rhetorically asking the teacher “if I was going to be gone until December, do you think I’d leave it up to my toddler to tell you?” I have no idea what she herself felt in that moment, but I know that I was incredibly embarrassed. I had been caught in a lie. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to lie. Well mannered, kind, polite good girls don’t lie.

Later my mother asked me “why did you say I was going to be gone until December?”

Apparently, I said “Well in Annie, her mom went away.”

IMDB image of Aileen Quinn and Ann Reinking in Annie (1982).

I was obsessed with Annie. I sang “Tomorrow” at preschool interviews. I’m not sure whether I was prompted or unprompted. Probably prompted, I was too shy to just burst into song back then.

The sun will come out tomorrow

So you’ve gotta hang on till tomorrow

Come what may

Tomorrow, tomorrow

I love ya, tomorrow

You’re always a day away

*The clip above is from the 1999 movie starring Alicia Morton as Annie (also including Audra McDonald Kathy Bates, and Kristin Chenoweth) A stellar production. Not to be confused with the original movie released in 1982, based on the 1977 Broadway musical. I’ve seen many, many versions of Annie (in high school auditoriums, community theaters, and of course on the big screen and small screen.) I cry every single time.

And if you’re listening to the audio recording, I mess up and call Alicia Morton, Alicia Quinn while reading this section - whoops!

I came up with another story about being abandoned a few years later, in elementary school. We were all tasked with drawing something, and then telling the teacher the story of our drawing. I told my teacher to write something along the lines of, “The princess is in her beautiful garden, and she is very sad. Her parents are divorced, and her mother moved to Canada.”* The pictures were displayed to our parents at some kind of PTA night. My mom recalls other parents joking about how she “couldn’t even stay in the country” when she jokingly tells this story.

*My parents are still married, and I don’t even remember the possibility of divorce being a conscious fear of mine as a child. I think it just added dramatic effect for my story. Freud and my therapist would likely disagree.

Milton, Saratoga County, NY. Circa August 2016.

A constant theme in my childhood; making up stories to make sense of an unexplainable sadness. To explain away the shadowy lines hiding underneath the perfect pictures.

Here in the present day, I laying on my couch in the late hours of the night, I don’t explain the shadows away. I simply stare up at them, in all of their depth.

I hold room for both photos of the ceiling. Both camera settings. The perfect flash and the long exposure.

I swallow in gratitude that I can do so without quite as much pain as I’ve been experiencing all day long.

I think about how embodiment isn’t one big moment, but a million small ones like this. I breathe and experience what it’s like to pay attention to myself and my senses in this moment. To feel my feelings. No make believe story needed to explain them away.

I press play on my Love Warrior audiobook, and listen until I fall asleep.

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Know someone who would like today’s essay? Send it to them!

Did you make up any stories like this when you were little? Let me know if we would have been friends on the playground.