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hat do you do when you’re faced with one of your “untils” finally arriving? My son is leaving for college. Far away. A major move. He won’t be close by – not in the same state, not even the same coast. He is leaving. That room will become my office, my writing space. I will have the privacy I’ve coveted to write anytime I want. That excuse will be extinguished.
It’s a great and wonderful thing. It’s a huge scary change. What will I do without him, my constant steadfast support? I wouldn’t change this move for anything; it’s a monumental achievement. He’s worked very hard for it. I’m bursting with pride. And terror. What if? Amongst the teeming swirl of all those “what if’s” is the ‘what if I don’t write’? What if I don’t use that space and time at all? What if that really was just another excuse? There’s no turning around. Our course is set – it can’t be altered at this point. The “until” is now.
There will be another first day of school that breaks my heart in confusing, muddled, unfathomable ways. I'm happy, I'm proud, relieved, vindicated - why am I crying?
There was – is – a very dominant part of my established psyche that doesn’t believe anything, all the mass of pending life planned, in progress, will actually ever occur, come to fruition. Of course it believes that. How could it not? It’s all it knows. Nothing pending has happened yet. But this one is. And the ripple effect from this one will be unending. It’s happening and then that will be it; done, forever. We’ve worked to this point, both of us, for twenty-some years and it will come to pass is a cosmic heartbeat. And it will be done and over. And I will be alone. A life check mark irretrievably struck through – “raise son, get him off to college.” Done.
I’m not sure how to live life with the biggest piece suddenly gone, just gone. All the planning, all the anticipation, all the heartbreak along the way led here, to
When life has been spent preparing, what do you do when there are no more preparations to make? I am indeed running again – I’m running out of time.
I haven’t wanted to write about this. My normal process is to sit in the early morning dawn and take those precious moments to listen; “where am I this
week? What’s my truth right now?” And that’s what I write. This is definitely where I am right now but it’s too close, too personal. I have learned along the way though that writing is always about tapping the raw truth; unrefined from the depths, dragging it out into the light and onto the page. True writing always resonates from a true heart. It’s not about being clever or technically skilled. And this is where my heart is right now. Everything else is a mere reflection, a response to this monumental event. Everything. Even my hiccuping heart knows that.
I’m scared to put into words my fear of being alone. I’ve never been afraid of 
that my entire life. I’ve often longed for it. I had to do significant work to accept not being alone. But now – now that it’s here again, at this time, this particular time in my life – I’m not ready. I need more time to plan, more time to prepare, more time to get projects done that I might need help with. What if I need to move furniture? Haul rocks around? What if I have another heart attack and nobody knows?
The journey in between defines the moments; defines the running away, the staying still and facing the silence, facing the blank screen.
It’s here, and I’m on the road once more – this time with my son, in his journey, running to join his life. And as it’s been true and proper for over twenty years, I am merely the vessel, the foundation from which to safely launch – the transportation. This is his journey now. I will just be an image in the rear view mirror, obscured in the swirl of dust kicked up from his own wheels, for just a scant moment. The road ahead needs his full attention.
I’ll be left behind, as it should be. I’ll be left alone to face once again my own journey, with one less excuse to hide behind. Whether I’m ready or not.
I failed. I didn’t get accepted or even acknowledged in the most recent contest I entered. I had high hopes. I allowed myself to put a tremendous amount of 
But I didn’t win. I didn’t even get a nod from Them – this all-knowing “anonymous” group of judges. For all I know, and what I of course assume at this point, They laughed at my entry. They threw it across the room, didn’t even bother reading past the opening. Maybe They now hold the knowledge of just how very bad I am, yet will never tell me. And I don’t even know who They are.
I’m taken aback by just how ludicrously hard I took this. I want to ask “Why?” Why not me? What was wrong with my story that I worked so hard to complete, that took all my nerve to submit? I want to know precise details, what didn’t work, what made them not like it, what sentence, what word didn’t work. I want them to tell me if I should just give up once and for all.
Rejection is hard enough for anybody, but rejection in an absolute vacuum, never knowing or meeting your judge, is a singularly helpless experience. The thought that some unknown person has secret information about me, that theyknow the truth about me that I will never know is agonizing. Strangers judged and compared me and found me wanting. It’s a sign. I should just quit now before enacting my drastic plans. All my ideas and schemes are unrealistic, ridiculous. That’s why they never come to fruition, why my life is pervasively pending. I should turn back now while I still can before I get on that single lane of hairpin curves through the mountains with no way to turn around.
I wonder how long I’ll stay feeling sorry for myself like this, licking my pathetic wounds, stewing in a fetid and toxic concoction of my own making. Or – is this really the truth and the rest some sort of delusion? Who knows which is real; the truth? I don’t anymore. I look for signs to reinforce my decisions, my actions, like this contest. Something to help me test each step – will this hold? Is it safe? Is it the right way to go? But the answers are always random, meaningless in the end. There are in fact no road signs.
I could throw in the towel. Accept my utter failure, eventually write it all off to just another mere delusional period in my life that I ultimately got through. I’ll bury myself in manual labor projects, where I can fight to get results, where I can at least physically see something I did mattered. I’ve struggled with why in the world I keep throwing more logs into the log jam. I’ve believed something had to work eventually, that I’d get to see a crack in the jam, a ray of light finding its way through somehow. I need that visible verification, to prove to myself that something I do has impact, that I can build and create something from nothing. There is a perverse vindication in doing projects. “See?!” I tell myself, “Look how much I accomplish if I don’t write”.
If I were my friend, instead of my own worst enemy, I would easily be able to offer guidance and objective support. This isn’t personal; it has nothing to do with “you”. You just weren’t right for this competition. This wasn’t the forum for a more experimental piece perhaps. All writers get rejection slips. All of them, even your heroes – you know this. This was good practice. You must grow a thicker, less sensitive skin to handle the climate where you are heading, where you say you want to live. This is an inevitable and necessary part of the process.
There are no “signs”, no map to follow that will get you to the treasure. It gets down to sheer hard work. Perseverance. Stubbornness perhaps. And yes – holding on to the delusion. After all, it’s only a delusion if it turns out not to be true. Right?
