Too Long in the Light

A “friend” of mine called me a cynic when I was 12 years old. I told her as soon as I looked up the word, I would confirm or deny the allegation. Turns out she was right. I was more cynical at 12 than I am most days now at almost 40. My mantra throughout high school was “life sucks and then you die.” That was based on a large amount of anecdotal evidence up to that point. I spent most of my teenage life thinking the worst of people, climbing the walls of my own mind, which was not a happy or safe place to be. There are several defining moments that changed my perception of humanity and of what life needed to be in order to live it to the fullest. Two of those moments came from English teachers, one in high school and one in college.

The first was in 11th grade when we read William Faulkner’s Nobel prize acceptance speech. He set out very clearly that the writer’s job was to help man endure and prevail. That meant he felt that man was worth helping. Enter purpose. I took those words to heart, believed in them completely, and told myself if I was going to write, if I was going to live, that was how it was going to be done. That was the first time I realized that something superseded my own self-interest. And if I could do things for the sheer purpose of doing them and not necessarily for any personal gain, then so could other people.

The second was my junior year of college where I met a professor who embodied Faulkner’s speech. Every word she wrote, every piece of encouragement she handed out, every criticism, was meant to help all of us endure and prevail. She taught us that there was a big wide world out there for us to make a dent in. She convinced us it was possible. I made a conscious decision then to believe in the good. To believe in possibility. That, combined with a near death experience at 20 years old, convinced me to choose the sunny side of life.

What they don’t tell you about the sunny side is that you will frequently get burnt. Sometimes the light is so bright that it doesn’t matter how strong the SPF, doesn’t matter what armor you choose to protect your energy, you will still feel the weight of disappointment and the hot pain of loss. I believe that people are better than they are. I believe that I am better than what I am. I believe in the potential and sometimes, no matter how much we want to, we don’t live up to it. I love hard and grieve big. And both of those things are choices. I chose to open my closed off little heart twenty years ago. What I found is that it’s impossible to close it back up. It’s like after you’ve taken all of the pieces out of an IKEA box. Try as you might, you are never getting all of them back in. I’m pretty sure the boxes are constructed around the contents anyway so that you can’t put them back in. But that’s another story.

If you read the news or generally interact with human doings, you would be convinced that I’m wrong. That cynicism is the way to go. That I was wiser as a teenager, and I’ve only gotten dumber. I would partially agree with you. I know far less now than I thought I did then. Most of life is unlearning. Tearing down walls. Untying knots. Rejecting concepts that weigh you down. I am always trying to get back to the hope and pure love of my four year old self.

But sometimes, people show you that there remains a spark of goodness in all of us. For instance, my brother has a Husky named Athena. And despite being the most spoiled member of this household, she still thinks it’s cute to run out the front door given the slightest chance and refuse to be caught. This happened again last week in the rain. We live on a street that is a busy thoroughfare despite going through the center of a residential neighborhood. People have been sideswiped by cars just taking their morning walks and ended up in traction. We’ve had cars end up in the side of houses like this is some kind of demolition derby track. So, when a dog does a runner, the neighbors know that she is already ¾ of the way to dead. Wyatt ran after her and if any of you have ever tried to chase a wolf before, you know that pursuing them only makes them run faster. I followed in my car. Dad followed me in his, trying to block her. Create a space where she couldn’t escape. It was a joint effort for people with a vested interest. Layer #1. As I drove after Wyatt, a neighbor stopped me to tell me where they went last. Another was trying to help him catch the hell beast. At least ten cars formed a line around ours to stop oncoming traffic, to hem her in. People got out of their cars, calling to her, offering her snacks, confusing her. Wyatt was in and out of the car catching up to her. Finally, curious about one of those treats, she paused long enough for Wyatt to full-body tackle her and carry her home. At least fifteen people shouted and cheered. People who don’t live in our neighborhood. People who were cutting through trying to get somewhere in the rain. Probably tired, annoyed, or any number of other situations that we never know about each other. But faced with a need, an opportunity to be just a little bit more, they all chose it.

People do horrific things to each other every day. The awareness of those things hurts me very deeply. I feel like life is mostly a grieving process. We’re all in one stage of it or another. In the midst of it, some of us choose to appeal to our higher selves. We smile when we don’t feel like it. We listen when we don’t have time. We pitch in and give parts of ourselves we forget we have. Those little moments carry far more weight than all of the evil we witness. At least they do for me. Most everything you plant in the spring will die in the winter, but that doesn’t keep you from planting it again. We lose, we face disappointment, and we try again. Sometimes, when things happen, my 12 year old cynic appears, her presence itself an “I told you so.” Her arms are crossed as if she’s waiting for me to follow her down the rabbit hole. I entertain the thought. It’s comfortable down there. It’s familiar. But I’ve learned to give her a hug and let her go. I’ve spent too long in the light to turn back now.