What I Found in the Leaves

Becoming an adult is seriously weird. Mostly because I have no recollection of it happening. One day I was counting my quarters in line at the local burger joint with my 15 closest friends, the next I’m counting quarters in the self-checkout at Wal-Mart for some peanut butter (while some cranky woman groans at how long I’m taking) so I’ll have something to eat on week two of the biweekly pay period. One minute I’m completely overwhelmed by my social life and grades, while feeling trapped in a gorgeous two story home surrounded by my loving family; the next I’m three hours away from that family, sharing a duplex I can’t afford with a duplex neighbor I have to beg not to smoke weed in the house. While Caleb (my then boyfriend, now husband) and I are both working two jobs, fighting just about every day, exhausted just trying to make ends meet.

Granted, I made the choice to take the long way around. I tried college out several times, and no matter what I tried, the classroom thing just wasn’t for me. And after years of working for other people, making their food, pleasing their customers, waking up early to make hundreds of parfaits at 2am, falling asleep at the wheel more times than I’d like to acknowledge, I knew the only way I’d ever feel successful was to be my own boss. But this decision has cost me the “normal” trajectory I’ve witnessed for some of my best friends. Being on this Jeremy Bearimy life path, I’ve spent a lot (please read: too much) time feeling jealous of the beautiful new homes, international vacations, and children my friends enjoy, while I’m still struggling to pay my rent even after downsizing significantly. 

I don’t like to throw around the word depression. Depression is a serious wound for those who bear it, and I remember being a prepubescent tween thinking I was depressed, and maybe I was. But it wasn’t until this last year I felt the cold hands of shame and failure wrap around my heart and hold tight. Like a winter cough that just won’t leave. But it wasn’t the being broke, losing friends, gaining weight, hating my day job, feeling like a general failure, or waiting on my boyfriend of 8 years to propose, because honestly, I have the best support system in the world and I am incredibly blessed. It was losing my Memee that cracked my life’s foundation wide open. My very own Pandora’s box.

I’ve written about her a few times before. And since I have had some time to process her passing, I find myself wondering what it was about losing her that made me afraid to drive or step too far up a ladder. I’d lost grandparents before. Grandparents who contributed to my life in major ways that shaped my moral character and personality. But it never hit me like this. It never woke me up in the middle of the night for grief or rendered food tasteless. So why was this different? 

I think in some corner of my mind, I didn’t think she would ever die. She was too good. She meant too much to too many. She was a mythical, immortal portion of my life that my brain simply could not accept is no longer here. And I believe this acceptance of death and what it actually means has been the final step of my orientation into adulthood, and the absolute hardest.

I have always been family oriented, my favorite holidays being the ones where my enitre extended family got together to share a meal and play catch up. And Memee was always the center of these gatherings. Loving Christmas was basically a personality trait for me. I was a pre-Thanksgiving decorator and proud of it! But without Memee, without it being her holiday, without helping her carry armloads of gifts “from the gettin’ place” from her car to the tree, without hugging her neck and laughing while she complained about the slow drivers on the road, without her it has to be something else. And what if that something else doesn’t bring the joy like she did? What if it’s never the same again?

And then there it is.

That’s why it hurt so bad. Because when life became unbearable, I’d always had this unfailing dopamine fix a few times a year. Unadulterated by drama or hurt or pain. Acknowledging that these memories were now only memories was nauseating. Now the world could crash in and my shelter was gone. Dramatic? Sure. But what got me through the ugliest parts of my life was the promise of reprieve eventually. The promise of finding an orange in my stocking, of her baked beans, of whatever cat-themed holiday wear she found this year. 

And that felt like it was gone forever. 

I guess adulthood is that feeling of watching your childhood get smaller in the rearview, realizing you left most of your heart there with it.

So being knee-deep in the early stages of depression is exhausting. There’s a lot of sleeping, and for me TV & books have always been a ready escape. And in my attempt to mentally run away, I stumbled on a few people who have inspired and changed my life again, but for the better. I listened to Wild by Cheryl Strayed and dreamed of hiking and backpacking the PCT trail. I’ve always enjoyed being outside and going camping, so I got my State Park pass and started hiking regularly at my local State Park.

If you’ve never hiked alone, I implore you to try it once. If you suck at meditating, this is something you have GOT to try. The feeling of being far away from other people, with only trees and the occasional armadillo, was the best kind of therapy for me. It didn’t want anything from me, but gave me so much peace. Being in the woods is my mediation blanket, it wraps me up and helps me breathe deep. The sounds and sunlight were the most potent medicine for my broken heart. Out there, it’s easy to see what entire cultures of forest worshipers saw: the poetry of a place that could care less if you were there, and remains just as beautiful when you’re gone. What a message for someone experiencing an existential crisis, right?

Next to pine trees a hundred years old, my anxieties felt insignificant and evanescent. In the woods, there is a buzz, like a low humming, but you can only hear it if you’re mentally present and quiet. Like the trees are singing, like divine orators keeping watch over us lesser creatures. Walking through sentinel trees, I feel my back muscles relax and open from years of holding tension. The leaves don’t care about the clothes I’m wearing, or if I’m tired or sad or afraid. When a tree loses a branch, it doesn’t mull around trying to get over its loss. It continues to grow!

So in the leaves I found myself, my new self. Someone who could grow past a broken limb. Someone who can stand strong in worldly trials, and even if I fall, hopefully my legacy will feed those springing up around me. I feel like that is a dream I can abide through cynicism and pain. Sure, we all die, but through death there is new life. Being afraid of inevitable things only leads to inevitable pain, and the world is just going to truck on without you anyway. You may as well embrace your scars as best you can. The trajectory may be different than you imagined, but in the worst scars there is beauty, and through death we can start again.

-Nicki