Whither

The Fourth of July. Big day in the United States. Canada’s birthday was on July 1st. Not nearly as much foofaraw. Canadians are self-effacing even around – maybe especially around – tooting our own horn.

Following a recent blog I posted about why I write, the next prompt I received suggested writing about where I am going with this blog. That caused me pause. The short and easy answer is that I have no particular goal for the blog itself. Outside of that, the blog is supposed to be about writing a book.

More and more, writing this blog is about me getting to know me. It is a privilege. Why does that even matter? It matters because I like feeling grounded. In the midst of several crises in my life, the most frightening part was being knocked off my pins. During those periods, my mind often raced with fear and uncertainty about who I was and where I was headed.

The more confident and lucky out there might say finding your way is simple. Set a path when you come of age and follow it. Like a ship or airplane traveling from Point A to Point B. But is anyone’s life really like that? Don’t most people encounter obstacles and upheavals on the way? Do obstacles enhance their commitment to a path or weaken it?

I remember how gung ho I was about my work life until I had a baby. That pivotal event upended my life as I had known it. None of the previous rules or values seemed to apply anymore. My beliefs about my family. My sense of self. My former priorities flew out the window and regrouped with an exclusive focus on this new life.

I am not the only young mother in the world who was completely overwhelmed by the arrival of their infant. A baby’s needs are incessant and unrelenting. Also, they don’t communicate particularly well. Fitfulness or a crying jag would have my mind racing: “Is he hungry? Is he in pain? Is his diaper wet (or soggy … ew)?”

From the day of my son’s arrival on the planet, my life was no longer exclusively mine. I had responsibilities. I can still remember the feeling of heading home from the hospital with my infant son. I couldn’t believe the nice people at the hospital trusted me enough to send him home in my care. Worse, they forgot to include the manual for how to take care of him. Professional negligence on their part, I thought.

But like all of life’s challenges, you either sink or swim. You may not necessarily do well what has to be done, but you do it as well as you are able. I watched in amazement as this little human evolved day by day gathering strength and skills as he grew. Even more amazing is that he made it to adulthood and he is a fine and fully functioning young man… even without a manual.

So minus the drama and life-or-death issues on the line, writing this daily blog is a little akin to birthing and raising a baby. You may have a sense of where it is going but there are lots of surprises along the way. Feelings about an issue arise that are deeper or more complex than you originally believed. Topics you never gave heed to before seem to need a little more investigation.

There was a time when my mind and heart were besieged by troublesome and intrusive thoughts placed there by a series of unfortunate life incidents. They bedevilled me. Most days I felt like I was in a race to either escape or contain those thoughts or prove to myself that they would not define me.

One day they simply went away. Thoughts that were once my constant companions dried up and went away. I can bring those thoughts back now only with effort and intention. They no longer hold sway over my daily life.

So the goal of this blog and the book I want to write is to wring out the lessons I learned from the life I lived. Those lessons I hope will serve as a guide or beacon to some young woman who was in a similar place of despair as I once was and help her see a way through. There were many books that did that for me.

I often observed that books seemed to arrive on booksellers’ shelves just as I was wrestling with the issue the book addressed. It was unfailing guidance from elsewhere that amazes me to this day. I was lucky enough to have been born on the crest of a new era that was beginning to take trauma seriously.

If a book I produce can one day be a rivulet adding to the river of insight and knowledge about life, I will have achieved all I want to achieve. Meanwhile, writing a daily blog allows me to know me better.

I get to reflect on interesting or funny things that have happened in my life or to others. The occasional comments or relatability of certain topics strengthens my sense of connection to others.

In the end, our lives are nothing else if not one long, often unpredictable, fascinating journey. It brings me satisfaction to share a part of mine and what I’ve learned with the world. I read what others write for similar reasons: to learn what others’ journeys have been like and to learn what they feel is worth sharing.