My Life is On Fire and I’m Sucking (Maybe You Are Too)
Lessons and letters from the trenches…
“What’s wrong with Benjamin?”
There’s a distinct mustiness emanating from the boxes we’ve just pulled down from the attic. Almost like visiting an old library or sniffing the spine of an old book. Inside the boxes, random Christmas decorations litter the bottoms. A one-foot tall Papa Noël. Ornaments (including a Superman and Batman figurine). Lights, wreaths, and holly. There’s also the faintest scent of cinnamon and oranges originating from a candle.
As a kid, I couldn’t wait until after Thanksgiving dinner to help pull the boxes down and decorate for Christmas. No matter the events in my life, I couldn’t help but catch the Christmas spirit. This year, I finish eating Thanksgiving dinner, pull down the boxes zombie-like, and go to my room. My brother tries to joke and cheer me up, but the half-hearted smiles betrays the inner workings of my soul.
“Honey..” my mom rests a hand on my brother’s shoulder. “Benjamin just had his wife leave him.”
“He should be happy! He deserves better. Not someone who will leave him while he’s fighting a war! She was horrible anyway!”
Mom grimaces and tries a different approach. “This is your brother’s second time to come home from war. Only this time his wife left. He doesn’t have a job and is stuck with a mortgage payment in a city he doesn’t live in. He’s a broken man right now, sweetie. Give him some time.”
Time indeed. When life hands you lemons, sometimes you get lemons full of mace that burn your retinas and leave you blind and wandering for a season. You keep running into trees and apologize to the other people you’re stumbling into along the journey.
When I start to date post-divorce I stumble and fall into holes, practically breaking other proverbial bones. Most of it stems from the dreaded conversation I don’t want to have, which usually produces the same results — no follow up dates. Once you jive with someone, there’s certain topics you need to bring up. Things like “I have a child” or “I have an STD.” Just basic courtesy to the person you’ve been seeing. For me, the magic words are “I’ve been divorced.”
Once said, the phrase would always linger in the air. I’d feel as if a record scratched — interrupting the soft jazz music — while all the nearby tables stop to stare at my badge of shame. This must be how Hester Prynne felt in the book The Scarlet Letter wearing her giant “A” for “adultery.” Much like Hester, there’s an invisible “D” tattooed on my heart.
During my foray into dating, I discover single, unmarried girls don’t want to date divorced men. Too many questions. “Did he cheat? Was he a crappy husband? Did they fall out of love? What happened?” Even if it wasn’t your fault that Scarlett “D” stood for “Damaged Goods” in the minds of many.
You believe that badge, the Scarlet “D”, is the truth. That if you’ve already failed or your life is on fire, it will only catch more fuel until you’re consumed.
I guess sometimes it still feels like that.
Man on Fire
The Alluvial Fan at Rocky Mountain National Park draws crowds every summer. It’s a magical place people are drawn to, like the World’s Largest Ball of Twine or Elvis Presley’s Graceland Mansion. It’s as if the universe sends signals telling men and women to escape to the woods or weird places. Once you’re there, you’re sucked into the moment.
Unless you’re on fire.
It’s been almost a full decade since my divorce and I’ve moved on. But even though I’m re-married and hiking around the Alluvial Fan, the events in my life feel worse at the moment.
The river water glimmers like a thousand mirrors, but your close friend’s battle with cancer is looking bleak.
The scent of aspen and pine surfs the wind and you breathe deeply, but you’re in a financial crisis.
Laying on the warm boulders while your daughter splashes in the snowmelt is invigorating, but you had to tell people they’re getting a pay cut indefinitely.
It’s the concert you’re at where you can’t stop thinking of your sexual assault. The birthday party when you remember how much the break-up hurts. The wedding where your friend’s father walks her down the aisle, but you lost your Dad.
So you fake it. Because let’s be honest, none of us have taken a selfie crying into our pillows and used a Nashville filter to let everyone know just how blue our life is. Instead it looks like this:
Internally, we know the truth. Liar, liar. Pants on fire.
“I should be happy. I should be happy!” you keep telling yourself. But you’re not. You’re a man on fire. You’re a woman ablaze.
FailureVille
In high school I remember reading The Scarlet Letter and thinking, “I’m never moving to a town where everyone is an asshole when you screw up.”
Growing older though, the amount of guilt and shame heaped on leaders or friends when they stumble reveals the underlying truth of The Scarlet Letter’s narrative. Funny that the book is considered Nathaniel Hawthorne’s magnum opus — his greatest work. It’s a story wrought with failure, adultery, hatred, and secrets. But it’s considered a work of genius and sits in the western canon of literature.
I think people love the story because it’s art imitating life. The two main characters are racked with anxiety, fear, guilt, shame, and moral failings. In our lives we’ll experience the same, so we relate.
But that’s not the ending we want though.
We need a story and a life with resolution. We need the flames to go out, the bandages to come off, and to get off the mat because we don’t have an iron jaw, but one made of glass. We are fragile creatures though we pretend to be strong. A single phone call with bad news can ruin anyone’s day.
In a twist of irony, every great book or movie we love has these moments of failure where a hero’s journey gets destroyed. They become depressed. The mission is lost. The evil Empire is winning.
Maybe people love The Scarlet Letter too because other themes like redemption and forgiveness emerge. Hester Prynne becomes a solace to other women who have been judged and shamed. But lest we forget she had to walk years in the trenches. And right now, I’m in a trench watching the world burn around me. I feel like Nero laughing as Rome burns. Because what is there left to do except laugh?
I hope I’m writing my magnum opus, but I just don’t know because things look too bleak. If you’re where I am, I hope you’re in the midst of your opus as well. Maybe what we need is to take a lesson from the movies, our favorite books, or our sacred literature. That lesson is, “Life isn’t fair. Sometimes it’s not fair for a long time.”
The Choice
On December 10th, 2003 I woke up bleeding and with my ears ringing. Buildings around me were exploding.
Confused, I kept yelling “shit” over and over, only I couldn’t hear the word. I was wounded on the battlefield and discovered my friend was as well. I stared for a few moments as he bled everywhere.
In our lives, when we’re drowning, burning alive, and facing down giants, we have two choices — Be brave or be scared. Staying scared keeps you right where you are while the world burns. But if you choose to be brave, there’s something you need to know: You cannot be brave without fear.
That December day I froze a few minutes. Quite a few actually. Paralyzed is a perhaps a better word.
Be brave or be scared.
I decided to be both.
Today, I’m trying to be both again.
I hope you will too.
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