There is a fair amount of intensely moving energy surrounding me this past week. Mom's visit to Alaska was met with sheer anxiety, hope, desperation, and love. This was the first time I got to show her, one person I desperately want to satisfy, what my new life in The Last Frontier is like. I wanted wallow in her virgin eyes of this land, and show her the most flooring parts. I wanted to show off my amazing group of friends, and the generosity of the people here. I wanted to her to go back to Iowa and report back to my family how great I was: perhaps boast for me- yes, Alaska really is that beautiful and expensive and engaging. Yes, it's cold. Yes, she is doing great. I think my expectations were so high for what I wanted to impress upon my mother, that I may have lost sight of why I really wanted to see my mom. I miss her and I miss the Midwest. Now that she is gone and the experience is a memory, I wonder why I didn't cherish this time with her most for me.
I know myself well enough to understand when I am not acting like myself. I felt like I spent a lot of the last week building myself back up with bricks that I have worked so hard in the last two years to tear down. I know that this is because my mind is going back to the relationship I last had with my mother where I was a very different person with impermeable walls. And I realize now that I wasn't myself because I was scared to show her the rawness of me. Scared to show her how different I am than I have ever been in my lifetime. Scared to face her as a woman and not a child.
One thing about family that is haunting is that they have seen every stage of your life- and can recall stages that maybe you even can not. I guess in every family that bit of that information can be scary or relieving. Looking back, I think my family has seen my worst stages more than the true person I am. Why?
Friday morning I got the phone call no one wants. Trauma in Iowa has brought news to Alaska of the death of a friend who died very, very suddenly at the age of 22. The phone call you never want when you live in a different region of the world that slaps you back into the reality of life. How random and unforgiving life is. How sudden something in an instant can change life so dramatically- so thoughtlessly. As my eyes are welling up while driving to work, I felt the world change. I felt a piece of the warmth and wholeness and goodness of this world disappear. I felt the world lose a good soul, and I saw for a split instant the skeleton of who we are in this place.
Times like these, amongst the goods, make it the most difficult to live here. Many may believe it is the elements, or the wildlife, or whatever- but for me the hardest thing about living here is recognizing that life is still happening everywhere else- and it's happening without me. Marriage, babies, death, anniversaries, birthdays- the life milestones of my people that bring humans together to remember why we really are here. Death in itself is a celebration, another milestone, and the gateway to yet another journey. Perhaps. Tradegy makes us human and can force us to face obstacles that are otherwise easy to dismiss and shelve. Tradegy throws life into our face daring us to live it- and wisely.
Wrapped around all this sort of inner confusion and persecution have been the strong arms of my Pooh. It feels good to know I can get through these troughs of life by myself, but it feels better when someone is holding my hand. Love is a funny thing and as my ultra-wise girlfriend mentioned today, there is an easy love and a committal love. Frightening words. When I thought more than anything that is the last thing I want, I am facing it with a huge-ass smile- and it feels so good.
Love, Death, Humility.
Is this what life is for?
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