Make it mean something
From the Born to Rise Festival, June 2023
My story in Born to Rise is about the solo trip I took to Peru to heal from my divorce and essentially everything related to that part of my life. I figured it would take about a week.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t, but that I’ll save for you to read. What I want to tell you about is what happened right after I got back to the states. And I have to start this story by saying, yes, Mom, you were absolutely right, I should have double checked the directions. Whoops.
I landed at JFK exhausted, a little bummed to be back, and definitely only awake because of the adrenaline rush from being a woman alone…anywhere.
So there I am with my giant backpack bouncing through the terminal with a phone at like, 18% because of course, and no idea how I was going to get to Grand Central Station and buy a ticket home with the $30 in my bank account and no alternative. I crossed my fingers and hoped it’d be a quick walk to the station…it definitely wasn’t. The security guard at the door laughed at me when I asked him the fastest way to walk and told me it was like 40 blocks. I think google maps said I’d get there in like 3 hours.
Gonna pause here and admit that I’m a jump feet-first kind of person, and it’s bitten me in the ass more than once.
So I turn around and head back into the airport. *Mime being on the phone* “Moooommmmmmmm, can you come pick me up?
Yes, I’m at JFK. Yes, I know you’re in Connecticut. Yes, yes, I know I was supposed to take the train to New Haven and have Sam pick me up. Mhmm, I know I’m sorry. Okay, drive safe. I loveeeeeee you!”
I found an outlet and seat at a little counter and shimmed my journal out of my backpack along with my phone charger. I figured I’d pass the time by transcribing my notes from the week from my phone into my journal. Journal people, you get me right, you can’t just write in your journal, especially when it was about the most IMPORTANT, TRANSFORMATIVE, SOUL-AWAKENING EXPERIENCE OF YOUR LIFE!
You have to have a rough draft for that.
So I open my journal and the bullet pointed notes on my phone and began writing the story from the moment the plane took off the week before. I think I got 3 sentences down before *lean sideways as if bumped* this woman stumbles into me and crashes into the seat right. Next. to. Me.
I was sitting at a completely empty table with multiple outlets. There were options, but the Universe and this very drunk woman decided, NOPEE, this one. Sit right there.
So anyway she sits down and wobbles, manages to pull out her charger and phone and ask, do you hi sorry can i plug in my phone it’s dead and i dunno when my ride is coming or if they know i’m here hi sorry hi
Did I mention that it’s like 11am?
She fumbles the cord out of her pocket and plugs in her phone, turns to me and goes, “Do you ever just feel like you totally messed it all up? Like it’s a mess. It’s all a mess, but it’s also life and it's funny and at the end of the day you sit in the bar and shrug it off?”
Um yes, actually, I do…so I spent the next two hours deep in conversation with my inebriated British friend, whose name I still don’t know. We talked about our families, our past relationships, and about life in that foggy, dreamy, philosophical-but-not way you can only talk about life when you’re very drunk or very sleep deprived.
We laughed and cried, which sounds completely cliche, but it happened. We talked about heartbreak and healing and found ways to understand that when it comes down to it, humans are really damn resilient.
Have you ever had a conversation that’s really made an impact on you? Like, while you’re talking and listening, there’s a little voice in the back of your head going, this is a big moment. This means something.
And you’re like, I know shut up, I’m trying to listen!
And then it’s a fight between you, your brain, and the person actually trying to talk to you?
If that’s a me thing, totally fine, I'm sure my therapist will love to hear more about it.
But that’s what was happening while I was sitting there. I sat down thinking I’d relive the past week, highlight the big moments and find some even deeper meaning to the trip, but ended up chatting with a stranger for two hours like we were besties at brunch.
And that, more than anything, was what I needed in that moment.
A big part of my story in the book is about releasing the shame I felt around what happened with my ex. I felt so ashamed of everything, who I became, what happened, how and why…all of it. And it felt like I was carrying that weight all the time.
So it had to mean something. All of this had to mean something. I was surrounding myself with personal development books, motivational speakers, examples of how people took the shittiest moments of their lives and made them mean something.
What I learned from a conversation with a stranger is that of course my story means something, but it doesn’t have to mean everything.
Because when you can step outside of something that was all-consuming and laugh, and say well shit, that sucked, but here we are, that’s the point. That’s the meaning. When you can connect with a stranger and just be fully human, even for a little while, that’s the meaning.
To be able to release shame, release the idea that I had to go on a pilgrimage to repent for the mistakes I made and the horrible situation I’d fallen into, to step back and realize that this wasn’t the whole book, but a few chapters that build up to the really good plot points.
It meant something, but not everything.
That was the missing piece from the trip. That thought, that knowing, ended up leading me to open up to a new level of healing and it helped me relax a little.
A little. I still kick the shit out of myself and hold myself to the highest, most unattainable standard, but sometimes I’m nicer to me. Sometimes.
Anywayyyyyyy
What a weird way to end that trip. Seriously, how did I end up putting so much weight and pressure on a 5-day trip? Because I’m nuts, I know, but really.
I told the Universe that I wanted to get over it. To grand-gesture my way through and wipe my hands clean of it.
Universe said, alright, bet.
What actually happened was realizing that it’s just a drop in the ocean. For me, it definitely rippled into tidal waves of healing, pain, love, joy, opportunities, all of that, but it also helped me see how deep the ocean is too. How you can’t put an end date on grief, or heartbreak, or healing. It’s not something you throw on a calendar and check off a list.
Laughing, crying, healing, hurting, feeling the full spectrum as often and for as long as you need to is human. And I don’t have to be ashamed of that.
When I plopped into my mom’s Jeep, she wanted to know all about the trip. I had very few words for her, and it did take a little while for me to find them, and maybe still, almost five years later, I still can’t fully articulate how it all felt. And that’s okay, because it meant something, not everything.
Originally shared during the Born to Rise Women’s Story Festival, June 2023, Providence, RI