Writings and Ramblings
Date: April 6th
Location: Leadville
Since my first post yesterday I’ve been considering my decision to move to Alaska. I’ve been rereading my journal entries from the past few weeks and I wanted to share some of the thoughts I’m having.
I’m thinking about what it means to make the right decision. Before I moved to Leadville I agonized over this even after a friend told me “I always tell myself, there’s not a right decision, there’s just a decision. Everything is a path.” But even though I continued to torture myself, her words echoed, and still echo. I’ve made the decision, I just have to start down the path and see where it takes me. I tend to feel personally responsible for the feelings of the people I love. My teenager is aloof and getting to the heart of how they feel is like pulling teeth. My mother is more free with her emotions about my decisions. It’s hard to hold all of it on my shoulders.
But maybe in another self-centered way this is my path back to living life. My path back to existence. I hope someday they will understand that.
Being a mother is filled with so much guilt, and hidden resentments, and love, and pain, and joy. I have never experienced a love so fierce as the love I hold for my child. We grew alongside each other over these 13 years together. I have sacrificed, I have flourished, I have waxed and waned in the seasons of my life alongside them. I wish I could take them with me to Alaska. I plan to have them visit at least once, maybe we’ll go see whales. I will miss them dearly, as I have missed them dearly since moving to Leadville. But it has been a good experience to exist as Finley, with the knowledge that they are extremely well looked after in the care of my mother. I went from teenager to mother with no in-between. I am extremely privileged to have had familial support in the raising of my wonderful and sometimes difficult child. I acknowledge the privilege I have to make the decision to move short-term to Alaska with my partner, leaving my child behind in good hands. But they are not my hands and that leaves me sodden with guilt.
I cannot be the mother I want to be while barely treading water. While losing my will to kick against the waves. I am stepping out of a situation that isn’t working to gather clarity. I am not going to wait for signs that may never come, I am the sign-maker. This is my act of defiance, defiance of my depression’s consistent whispers that I am not capable, that I can’t handle this life, that there is nothing worth continuing on for.
I don’t need to become someone else to live the life I want. I just need to be who I am now and make the decision to go after what I want. I will find my spark. I will take it season by season. I will love my life again. I will persevere. I am not a character in a story, I am real, I am here and now. It’s time for me to live.
Before I sign off I want to share an exercise I’ve been doing in my journal: every day I notice a bird and document what it’s doing. This is a grounding exercise and something to make me get out of my head for a little bit. This entry is from April 4th.
Raven: Riding thermals above the bridge. They trust the wind to bear their bodies forth.
Til next time… Finley