Reflections from the mirror.

December 5, 2009
If we can have the courage to look at ourselves with honest eyes and still have the strength to accept what we must yet change what we can, we have the rarest and most precious of all opportunities: the chance to live a fully realized life. Despite the risk of offense from over-generalization, it is my honest opinion that most of us are unaware of how deeply we sleep throughout our everyday lives. We wake, we eat, we work, we visit, we shop, we even love without being fully conscious of each act: without being fully and completely in each moment. Oh, we may catch occasional glimpses now and then, brought about by a sincere emotion or a profound experience, but I think these glances are fleeting at best. For most of our lives, as Tom Robbins so eloquently put it, we are all half asleep in frog pajamas. (For those of you whose curiosity is peeked, well done! Read this book; you will love it.)
For the sake of fairness, I know that I myself, despite great efforts to the contrary, have spent most of my life in this in-between state. Now please don’t confuse my meaning. I am not speaking of naiveté, or immaturity or selfishness or any of the other derogatory comments we so often make about one we say is “out of touch with reality.” No, I am speaking here of true enlightenment, and not just in a spiritual sense, but enlightenment of the mind and the senses and of all things we consider for ourselves to be both vital and mundane. Too often we only exist. We do not live and tragically we are quite often unaware that there is such a profoundly important difference. Through many tragedies and triumphs of my own, I have come to understand that this is perhaps the most important distinction one can ever learn to make.
Now once again, please don’t misunderstand me or think me arrogant, insensitive or rude. To choose to travel through life with eyes resting mostly on the familiar is both safe and comfortable. There are also great rewards and joys to be gathered here, and if one makes this choice freely and honestly, a life so lived can be perfect and complete onto itself. But for others, it will never be enough; some of us need much bigger borders. I have known all of my life that I am one of these latter individuals but reconciling this need with the needs and desires of those I love, and who love me in return, has proven to be exceedingly difficult. How does one choose between what they need to be happy and what those around them need to feel the same, especially when the two are seemingly contradictory? Indeed, is it even possible to choose? After many years of struggle, I had come to believe that it was not and that a life of existence was the best I could do. I therefore did the best I could to make my happiness within these smaller limits.
But it was not enough and by last winter I realized I had no choice but to do what we all must do if we are to prevent ourselves from falling into a slumber so deep we will never be able to find our way out of it again. So I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and faced the image in the mirror of my own life. In this reflection I saw many things I expected and, of course, many things I also feared to find. I saw a woman in the summer of her life and although her eyes were filled with the memories of both great joy and deep heartache, I saw as well how she had been able to use these to temper her soul and make it stronger. I saw a woman with great curiosity and a bright intellect but one who also finds it difficult to share of her time and of herself. I saw a woman who despite having the courage to explore the world around her often finds it difficult to maintain faith in her own abilities. I also saw a woman who too often subjugates her own will to the will of those who love her until the stress from this conflict erupts in deep loss and great pain for all involved.
I saw that some of these reflections have always been a part of her nature and that others, for better or for worse, had been learned through the experiences which shaped her life. I saw a woman accomplished in many ways but one who was also still profoundly starved for fulfillment and purpose. I saw her efforts to quell this hunger with those things acceptable to those around her and I also saw how sometimes this re-direction worked but how most often it did not. I saw the extra 100 lbs. this woman carried, the self-destructive habits involving food and alcohol and money that arose as a result of trying to satiate this hunger through means which would never suffice, and accepted responsibility for the damage these choices had made. I saw a woman who finally understood, after having explored all possible alternatives, that making the image in the mirror match the image in her heart would require choices she had previously been unable to maintain. It would require living a life of wider borders, despite the fear and discomfort these borders brought to those her love her, and a life of trying to find a way to help those she loves accept this.
It is a decidedly odd sensation when one awakens fully to life. You feel exhilaration at first but this is followed soon after by an aching sadness for all you have missed in the meantime. It is like seeing the world in color for the first time. Once you have known the full spectrum it is very difficult to be content with only black and white again.
I have had many moments and periods in my life which have been fully spectrumed but they all ultimately came at a price I eventually found impossible to pay. However, by last winter I had also learned that the price of not paying was even greater. I was losing myself. Indeed too many parts of me were already gone. I look back through my journals over the last 20 years and they are all uniformly filled with the same laments and regrets. The details may have changed but the theme remained. Although I won a battle now and again I was losing the war. The reflection in the mirror made this perfectly clear but at the time I had no idea of what to do about it.

So I started with the simple and the obvious. I went through my house and purged it of all unhealthy foods. I joined the YMCA and actually went 5 days a week. I reduced my drinking until eventually I was able to cut it out completely. In the meantime my family and I took a trip through my brother’s church to the Holy Land. Although I never expected it, it turned out to be 10 days which helped me save my life. My travel journal from this excursion is filled not only with the history of all the places we saw, but also with how these places and these experiences changed me inside. By the third day one change was painfully and obviously clear and my diary entry that night said it best: “I can no longer deny the truth. I am starved for human contact.” And that is when I knew. The current borders of my life would never be enough and if I wanted to live, truly and fully live, I had to find a way to make them bigger.

It began with Turkey. I remember our last evening in the country standing at the port gate and looking at my 3-month Turkish entry visa and actually wondering just how much trouble I would cause if I didn’t get back on the ship that night. I needed to be there longer, to spend more time on foreign soil, which is why within days of returning to the states I had found a way to return to the Middle East. I can neither describe nor explain the feeling of euphoric relief which overcame me at that moment. All I can say is that I finally fully realized just how close to the edge I had come and just how far of a fall I had been about to take. And so, as I lay on my small Turkish carpet in central Indiana, contemplating all of the monumental steps which would be required to get me back overseas, I kept waiting to encounter one which would end it all, to find that one step which would be impossible to take, but I couldn’t. Yes, the road between here and there would be difficult and long, but all of my life had been preparation to travel it. Indeed, I had no choice but to travel it. Existence was no longer enough. Taking my TEFL training in Istanbul would not only gave me the tools I required to live the broader life I could no longer deny that I needed, but would also gave me time to learn just where those bigger borders needed to be.
And it is just this search which has brought me to Egypt now. Sometimes where we need to be is the last place we ever expected to end up. And sometimes we learn that it is our own expectations, our own limitations and biases and ungrounded fears, which are our own worst enemy. Did I ever expect to find myself in the Middle East? Of course not, but then I never expected my life to ever change from how it was last year or the year before or the year before that. And I certainly never expected to find anyone I wanted to share it with. As I said, I had long ago accepted that within the borders I knew such a thing would be impossible.
But if I have learned one thing in my life it is also never to say never, and despite my surprise and defensive, habitual resistance I did find that someone, and I found him in the last place I ever expected to look. When I was invisible, when my true self was hidden behind walls so thick and so tall I thought they would never be breached, he saw through them. When I was screaming and no one, not even myself, was listening he heard and responded. When I was still lost and struggling to find myself and my way he helped. Despite the differences in our backgrounds we have more in common than I would ever have thought possible and a gentler soul I have never met. For myself, trust is the rarest element in the universe and yet I trust him: easily, completely and fully. And I know as well that my trust is safely placed. Is it logical? Does it make sense? Is there anything I can offer or say to my family and friends as solid empirical proof that my love for this man and his for me is well-placed and well-deserved? I can fill pages with reasons but ultimately it all comes down to this: I know it is right and I know as well that all I can do is ask for those who love me to trust my judgement. My borders are now where they need to be. I am finally fully and completely alive.