A Million Years Gone By

One year ago, this week, I was experiencing something quite surreal. I’ve spent the entire day thinking about whether or not I was going to acknowledge it, whether I’d figure out a way to talk about it without talking about it. Which part of the story I was ready to reveal, which parts I’d keep to myself. This is a narrow line I walk, and I step further to the safe side of it with every passing minute because I’m shutting down. I used to be able to say everything and now I can barely muster a “I’m feeling sad right now” to share with the world.

So I’m going to pick the one part of the story that will always always be the bright shiny spot that I circle around. I come back again and again, it is so beautiful. It was, undeniably, The Day Jenny Saved Me.

I received some news that day that would change my life forever, and Jenny was there, the first to share in it. She convinced me to call in sick to work. We drove around town in her minivan for what seemed like an eternity. We talked about things. The matter at hand and unrelated things of all kinds. We went to Happy Wok for a fortune cookie, hoping that a little slip of paper fate would guide me. It was unhelpful.

We went to a psychic. Jenny drove me to a little white house next to a little pink house. We were excited and skeptical and sad and giddy. All at once. When I left, when we got back into the van, we were just stunned speechless for a very long time.

“I want to call the TV stations,” Jenny said to me. “I want to call them and say ‘Hey, did you guys know that psychics are real?’”

We drove from the psychic to Jenny’s house, a long mostly rural drive. She made me mint tea and then I passed out. I have not slept so deeply since that day, since her couch. I drink mint tea now, and it makes me sleepy and sad. Mint tea gives me a feeling in my gut, like I will always be hungry and thirsty and empty and tired.

That day changed my life forever. A year later, I’d be a fool to pretend it didn’t happen.

It hurts so much to acknowledge it that I rarely muster up anything but anger. Anger is easier. So today while I was in the shower, crying crying crying, I thought enough. Enough bitterness about this pain that I carry, that I’ve carried since January 13th. Because the pain won’t ever go away, but I’m killing myself being angry about something that nobody in the whole wide world could have controlled. If my experience with the psychic should have taught me anything at all, it’s that I’ll never understand what happened or why.

I re-read Rosanne Cash’s short story “The Last Day of the Year” when I got home from work tonight. The main character makes no resolutions, but sets fire to scraps of paper containing the things that she wishes to let go of, so that she can move into the new year with something akin to a clean slate.

Becca said something to me just now that made me smile through the tears. She said, “I don't think I'd want to live in a world where I didn't believe there were some things beyond human understanding. We're smug enough.” I tried turning to the Serenity Prayer long ago, and it didn’t work for me, asking for serenity and courage and wisdom. That’s just too much to hope for. But aiming for a simpler goal, to stop trying to figure it out, to stop being smug when it’s so blatantly obvious that I don’t have a clue? That might be the only resolution I need.

I don’t know if it’s a prayer or an affirmation or a statement of intent, but I believe in something more powerful than myself right now. I believe that my life is exactly what it’s supposed to be today, and it hurts like bloody hell to say that, but it’s true. I believe that The Day Jenny Saved Me will ultimately be the important part of the story, the part that will teach me the most. I believe in psychics on North Main and fortune cookies. I believe I’ll never understand, and I finally believe that’s okay. I will be okay. I believe it.

The rest of it? Everything else I thought I believed about the past year? The rest is floating on flaming scraps of paper off of my balcony right now.