Used to be crazy

Astonishing, disheartening, enlightening – the phase of life in which I find myself is dripping with retrospective self-responsibility and it is all these things.

I opened a letter I wrote my future self when I was a freshman in high school. Seeing the writing on the page transported me through time and space into the body of fifteen year old me sitting so self assuredly in some straight backed advanced placement classroom chair. My confidence in my path at the time was so strong I felt it petty, almost inconsequential, to list the achievements I would have gained at some future life stage; instead, I focused on romantic prophecies.

Reading it now disgusts me.

Like a kaleidoscopic movie-frame reel running through my mind, I can see the pivotal moments, can watch other versions of myself make choices that changed everything.

I’ll giver her, me, in all my versions, some credit. She – I – never underestimated a crossroads. Never was a decision made without conscious attempt at foresight, without consulting the gods, without a deeply introspective consideration of consequence.

Nonetheless—

Once again, I feel crazy. The great comic Mitch Hedberg might say, “I use to have mental illness.” He’d pause, then add, “I still do. But I used to, too.”

On one hand, I’ve lived an incredible life, almost backward, in terms of How We Become. I exited the rat race immediately; lived on a tropical island fire dancing, surfing, falling in love; made a fulfilling and exciting career of philanthropy, changing the world, traveling, doing yoga; wrote a book, wrote poetry, did photo shoots at the tops of mountains, ran across the mountains; moved to somewhere remote and beautiful to raise my child in peace—

Gratitude, like sunshine and the sparkle of freshly fallen snow, drips from my chalice, and daily. I know that I am rich in freedom, wealthy in love, wildly successful in health and peace.

Is the price of freedom to be this lonely, though? Is the joy of the wild achievable only through the vow of poverty? Must I struggle so severely to hold onto peace, onto the piece of dirt my roots have claimed, onto a life that seems so beautiful . . . but feels so sad?

As a primarily spiritually-driven person, I turn to my faith. I find comfort and companionship in spirit, in the old texts, in the very earth herself. I build close relationships, participate in community, live authentically and vulnerably. But I see around me robust families or those who’ve made their fortune and exited while on top to create a “simple” life of peace and comfort. I see comfort and safety not as spiritually-bypassing claims of freedom and bliss, but as well established foundations of home, hearth, and security.

I ask myself why I cannot find a good job, a good man, why I am alone most of the time, why I feel hollow and sad. And I give myself grace, years of grace, years of patient waiting and standing strong and firm in my vision. Yet—

The advantage of being raised in a vacuum, a close friend once pointed out, is that I am free to choose my own life. I have no expectations to live up to, no familial obligation to fulfil, no authority to answer to—no  structure. Total freedom.

There is gap, though, an invisible but necessary foundational component that is missed when one builds one’s life entirely on ideals. Poverty is a mentality, but it is also a life experience, see – and in order to permanently escape it (because, do not misunderstand, poverty is enslavement, no matter how it is sustained or caused), to be truly free of it, there must be a holistic sustainability container, a protective shield of abundance, let’s call it.

In other words, being poor and free is, eventually, equally as heavy as being poor and miserable. Many of my earlier adult decisions were based on a different assumption, though: if I can scrape by here, where it sucks, why not scrape by somewhere beautiful? And that assumption was perfect for the stage of healing I was in – the stage of allowing myself to experience the ideals of an unburdened childhood that were robbed from my actual, traumatic as fuck childhood.

Life is longer than any other me realized it would be, though. Not in terms of life expectancy, as it is no secret that I have always planned to live an inordinately long and healthy life well into my 100’s, but rather in terms of life-iterations.

In terms of “wow, I can’t believe this is my life,” moments. And the impermanence thereof.

And, it turns out, the ability to create a NEW life in any moment.

So I think back to fifteen year old me now with the perspective of thirty-seven year old me who no longer believes romantic love is going to save me, who no longer believes some man is going to be my happily ever after.

My sister recently reminded me, when I mused I should’ve married (or stayed married to) a rich man, that Cher said, “My mother wants me to marry a rich man. I said, ‘Mama, I am a rich man.’”

I remember that fifteen year old me was set to become a lawyer, like Gandhi, who would go on to change the world. I remember that school was easy; my writing flowed like teardrops, like a waterfall, like sunshine. I remember early acceptance to Ivy League schools and feeling like the yellow brick road was laid with gold, and I was already on it.

I do not regret a single turn I’ve taken on or off of that golden road. I do not see it as a broken road, any more than I have judged the stones and roots beneath my feet, leading me to the summit, thinking “how difficult; how sad for me that the trail is not easier.”

Instead, I see the experiences of my adulthood as cornerstones of my future vision. I have worked in the trenches, taken my talent to the bottom and mopped the floor with my intelligence. I have been spoken over and let go by men who could’ve starred in Idiocracy, and I have begged for jobs carrying dirt.

So, when I achieve my law degree, albeit fifteen years “late,” make my fortune not by escaping the Machine, but by rewiring it from within, and become The Rich Man, mama—

My return to the seashore will be that much sweeter. The foundations I pour beneath my mountainside cottage will last, next time. The world I build will be solid, will be the result of alchemizing ideals into a tangible life.

The cost of freedom is not joy. But freedom built on illusion . . . freedom under the threat of poverty . . . is still enslavement. I am grateful for the ways I am truly free, for the demonstrated sovereignty of my life story, and for the courage to rebuild, on purpose, as necessary.

It is the gift of delusion that allows me to see the invisible golden road, by the way. “Somebody once gave me a box of darkness. In time, I realized it, too, was a gift.” -Mary Oliver

I used to be crazy. I still am. But I used to, too.