To say the least, it’s been a strange year. Looking at my blog (and when I say blog I mean essays) I can see that my posts are far and few between. Part of me feels a little sad, perhaps even a little guilty about not writing as much as I’d like to; while the other part reminds me that a quarter of the year was in fact spent picking up the pieces after Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael, that and my creative well wasn’t exactly what you’d say overflowing. And yet, despite these blocks in the road, I still somehow managed to drum up my two cents’ worth over our country’s lack of gun control, over the true importance of women, alongside my conviction that regardless of what some might think, anti-Semitism is very much alive and well where we live and where we pray.
Ego aside, I like to imagine my time spent laboring over a few paragraphs was spent wisely. I like to imagine that I was creating something that would be remembered long after I’m gone. I like to imagine my days spent under a hot sweltering sun mucking through the mud in search of survivors was equally of value to others as they were to me filling my life with purpose. I wish to believe these things because the latter has taken me away from home at a time when I was needed there the most.
From September to December with my FEMA hat on, I found myself stressed to the core as I raced from one state to another, one disaster to another while juggling all my roles: caregiver, advocate, daughter, mother, grandmother, writer, disaster responder. Looking back, I was a goddamn mess. My emotional fibers were unraveling at warp speed and I soon found myself in the ER hooked up with fluids pumping in. Naturally, I didn’t think I could last another day in the Panhandle. But after a few hours rest, lots of liquid nutrients and a $500 bill to show for it, I was back in the trenches.
As I said, this past year was strange. But more than that … it’s been devastating as I’ve watched my ninety-one-year-old mother deteriorate like a runaway train careening down the track. Alzheimer’s is the type of monster once it gets its hooks in, there’s no coming back. Bedridden, frail, withering away to skin and bones, she sleeps 24/7. She doesn’t talk. She barely opens her eyes and when she does, she doesn’t know me. Each day has been this incredible struggle trying to wrap my head around the hard fact her end is near, and with that end will go the most important person in my life.
And so the wait began.
When I wasn’t binge-watching Outlander and Game of Thrones, I funneled whatever energy was left over into writing. For as long as I can remember this thing I do has been my single most precious place of worship. My retreat. My joy. And my greatest frustration. Most days I find myself staring at a blank page or a page I’ve edited five times and still reads like shit. The thing is 2018 was supposed to be a banner year in regards to the completion of my second book (well, it’s not actually just one book, rather a series of three fat ones). That was the plan. The goal after thirteen long fucking years. But if you know anything at all about life, you know things don’t always turn out as planned. Shit happens. Not for one moment do I honestly believe that what I’ve been toiling over for forever is going to be the next War and Peace. But oddly—if nothing else—it sure is nice to know I’m not the only snail in the bucket. Tolkien took eighteen years to write Lord of the Rings. Salinger took ten to write Catcher in the Rye. Mitchell ten as well for Gone With the Wind. And Hugo scribbled through twelve arduous years with Les Miserables.
It’s not always easy trying to explain the trials and tribulations of living a creative life. Sometimes it feels so small in comparison to the reality of it. However after taking eight years to complete her first book: A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, I do think Maria Popova nailed it. “One of the great cruelties and great glories of creative work is the wild discrepancy of timelines between vision and execution,” she wrote. “When we dream up a project, we invariably underestimate the amount of time and effort required to make it a reality. Rather than a cognitive bug, perhaps this is the supreme coping mechanism of the creative mind if we could see clearly the toil ahead at the outset of any creative endeavor, we might be too dispirited to begin, too reluctant to gamble between the heroic and the foolish, too paralyzed to walk the long and tenuous tightrope of hope and fear by which any worthwhile destination is reached.”
So yeah … 2018 pretty much sucked. And I suspect 2019 will be marked by more of the same. But I’ve been down this particular road before—as have 99% of you as well—and as horrible and as shitty as some things feel in the moment, what is true is the knowledge that you do go on. You can endure those tests you’re forced to face. Because after the dark does come the dawn.
And so determined to finish off the year with some tiny nugget of hope in my heart, like every New Year’s Eve before, I spent this one with my daughter and granddaughter. After a meal of salmon drenched in duck sauce and Nutella popovers, topped by a glass or two of Pinot, Meghan and I colored. We all danced. We took loads of silly Snapchat photos, strutted our tiaras, shook those noisemakers and whatever else Party City had to offer. And for a few short hours, just a few, I was once again laughing.
So as we hail in this new year, like a gentle kiss on the cheek, I give you my wishes. My hopes. My thoughts on whatever.
Please try not to be so hard on yourself in the year ahead. Forgiveness is easier than you think. Make everyone and every moment matter. Work toward change. Be the change. Remember kindness is more than a word. Remember that those battles worth fighting aren’t won in a day or an hour. Meet new people. Kiss new people. Find new things that interest you, that inspire you, that can open up doors to those relationships which just might pan out to be the best ones of your life. And lastly, never stop reaching for the stars … no matter how long it takes you to get there.
Thank you all for allowing me into your lives. I wish for you and your families a most miraculous year ahead.
Lauren
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