you were never enough

Somewhere between the beginning and end of 2008, I lost almost everything that mattered to me in a matter of months.

My husband. My home. That unbridled hope for a life I might love that drives so much of what we do in our twenties. All of it dissolved, almost overnight.

I’d be more specific about the timing if I could - like in the spring of 2008 - but that year, and the three that followed, did not have seasons. Terror took care of that, covering everything in a thin film that wouldn’t let any light through, making it impossible to remember what spring smells like or the warmth of the summer sun on my face.

But season aside, there are a few details that stand in sharp relief against the otherwise grayscale hue of my memory, and those details I can share with some certainty.

I know that when my husband took leave of his family, I was making $15,000 a year. I know this isn’t enough to pay a mortgage and feed four people. I know the shade of red we painted our front door and the way the house smelled when I brought our third and final baby home. 

It was hardwood and smoke and burning leaves.

I know where I was sitting when I found out Wells Fargo would be taking their house back and I know what it feels like to preside over the slow dismantling of a dream.

But what I can’t quite remember is this:

How I managed to do all of the things that followed.

The divorce. The emptied house. The heartbreak.

The multiple moves. The overwhelm. The never-having-enough.

The kids who constantly needed. Their mom, constantly emptied.

All of it again begging the question: how did this emptied husk of a human carry on all those years and build a life she loved? 

To which, today, I would say: 

She didn’t.

I didn’t.

Which I know is not what you expect to hear because this is usually the part of the story where we turn the corner and start to talk about the triumph. The grit and the grace. The wells of resilience that allowed me to rise from the ashes.

A Hyperindependent Hero’s Journey - the stuff our deepest dreams are made of.

But I’m here to tell you it’s all bullshit. 

And the worst kind of bullshit, too, because it can sound so close to the truth. I mean, I am still standing, after all, and I do have a life I love most of the time, and I did work my ass off to crawl out of that kind of desperation, so if this isn’t a story about how I fought my way to a happy ending, then what is it?

Well, I’ll tell you.

It’s a story of a different sort -  one where I hope to set the record straight and tell the truth about what led me to a life I love. 

It wasn’t me that did that.

It was we.

Which we? 

Me and the kids. Me and my parents who helped me pick up the pieces. Me and the friends who showed up with a call or a meal or a moment that helped me remember there might be a day when my life was something more than survival. Me and a relentless sense that something bigger than me was animating what little life I had left.

Yes. That we. All of that. And not in a theoretical sense of support, but in a real, tactical, help-arrives-at-the-last-second sort of way - the only way that actually counts when you’re in over your head with no relief in sight.

And for years, I’ve denied that any of that was true because I wanted to be able to tell a story that might help me outrun the fear I feel about the inevitability of my own interdependence. About the fact that I am not enough in some circumstances no matter how many mugs or journals I own that claim the contrary. 

Not because I am fundamentally flawed or because I lack some internal fortitude, but because we are not made to go it alone. The human being, that is. I mean this literally. We know it from our infancy. Our interdependence is in our bones and there is no personal pep talk that can quiet that sneaking suspicion that reciprocity is required for our survival.

Which, if you’re anything like me, can seem like incredibly troubling news at first pass because have you seen other people? I mean, really. In the past week alone, I’ve encountered the raw, feral underbelly of humanity at least thrice while driving down the street. People have disappointed me, let me down, hurt my feelings. I have felt a wide range of painful human emotions all because of this insistence that I can’t just disappear to a small hut on a shore somewhere. 

But also… have you seen other people?

I mean, really. Have you watched? As I write this, there are two women in a booth right in front of me - maybe mother and daughter - hands joined, sharing something tender that evokes tears for them both, each hanging onto the other like an anchor in a storm. Just this morning, I was held and touched and loved in ways I never saw coming. In this moment, I drew in a breath that was once an exhale from another body and so did you, which just doesn’t seem like it should be something a body can do, but it is.

And all of this - this inevitable interdependence and the joyful horror/horrific joy of it - is what we live into at the studio. We’ve done it since the day we opened the doors by making our survival a collective endeavor in a very literal sense, one where you offer what you have - no matter the amount - and together, we discover enough.

Not because you are or because I am. Never that. 

But because we both deserve a life where neither of us has to be.

Which is perhaps the best possible news I can imagine because have you seen you? Have you seen me? Do you know what we can create together?

Neither do I. That’s the part I love most. So, let’s find out together.

Come be a part of that life with us