WHEN THINGS FALL APART
Navigating the world after heartbreak; beauty and terror; and the choice to just keep going.
When you’ve had an emergency or two, you start to notice patterns in how people behave. I do believe, as the Buddhists do, that people are basically good. But we are also scared and confused, and people do weird things when they are scared and confused.
Years ago, when my son, Lou first got out of treatment, I was counting the days until I could return to the playground with both of my boys in tow. The day finally came, and there I was, with a still-bald Lou, and West, with his shaggy blonde hair. I met a mom named Kathy. She took one look at Lou and asked, “What kind of cancer does he have?” “Had,” I kindly corrected her. “Oh my god,” she said, following me around the sandbox. “How did you find out? What where the symptoms? Did he stop eating, drinking, nursing, playing, sleeping…”
I turned to face her.
“I’m sorry, are you worried that your child has brain cancer, too?”
Kathy laughed, nervously, and backed away from me to join the other mothers. I packed my boys up, and the fucked-up thing was that I felt really bad for being rude to Kathy. I looked for another playground, maybe one without the Kathy’s of the world unknowingly projecting their fears onto my broken heart.
Years later, my playground anxiety remains high.
What to do when you’re at the park and everyone’s commiserating about ear infections, head lice, hand foot and mouth, and that now, they can’t go to Florida?
I stand there, commiserating, too, enjoying the pleasure of forgetting my difference. Until someone remembers it for me. “I mean, it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through.” While I appreciate the nod, I try to make them feel better. I reach for my prepared statement, about how everything’s relative, how suffering is suffering. But is it? I don’t want them to think that I think I’m so great just because my son had cancer.
“No one thinks that,” my friend D. reminds me.
But still.
I stand there, holding their fear, and whatever else my disaster brings up for them. I feel it in my throat, and my head, along with the fear that maybe I have lice now, too.
D. is one of the few people in the world I can really let loose with. While our stories are different — she lost her parents to cancer; my son, Lou, and I are both survivors – we laugh as only people who have been to the rodeo more than once dare to laugh. Loudly, savoring the abandon.
We can also commiserate over things unique to being the person in need. Like GoFundMe’s, if you’re lucky enough to have had one. D. had a friend with means who had an issue with GoFundMe. The system’s broken, why should he help pay for her father’s radiation? “That’s called a Go Fuck Yourself!” I exclaim, and D. spits her sandwich out, howling.
Or the person who wants their Tupperware from the Meal Train back. Immediately! How to explain that, while the lasagna was delicious, and the thought of them standing over boiling water and dropping pasta pieces in, one by one, as an expression of their love for you truly makes your heart explode…you have no idea where their Tupperware went?
Or the friend who insists that you see their therapist, healer, psychic, or the doctor who cured their Uncle Kenny. How to explain that without a Go Fuck Yourself, you can’t afford to see those specialists? And that, while terrible, Uncle Kenny’s kidney stone is not your son’s brain tumor, like at all?
You just can’t.
But here’s the thing. I do all this weird stuff, too.
A while back, said friend treated me to a session with an energy healer. On the way over, I read in the healer’s bio that she had lost a child in a car accident. Suddenly, I was convinced my seeing this healer was not a good idea. Surely something bad would happen to me, maybe I’d get in a car accident, too, maybe, maybe…
Why do we think chaos is contagious?
I showed up with my closed heart. The healer, a grandmother with the kindest eyes I have ever seen, held my hands in hers. I told her my ugly thoughts. “Isn’t that human nature,” she laughed, laying me down in a recliner chair, two hot stones for my open palms. My heart began to open again. I lay there, feeling reverence. She had been through my worst nightmare and made it to the other side.
“How did you get through it?” I asked her. “I just kept going,” she said.
But sometimes I don’t want to keep going.
Sometimes I don’t want to be the person with the terrible story. I just want to go to the playground and marvel at the magnolia blossoms and how much strep throat sucks with the other mothers. I don’t want to receive another copy of Pema Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart from a well-meaning friend. While it’s comforting to have a Buddhist nun confirm that, yes, your life has fallen apart, sometimes I want to pretend that it hasn’t.
My friend D. sends me the Rilke poem that’s always popping up on Instagram, you know the one.
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
Sounds like something Pema Chodron would say.
As the buds on the magnolia trees threaten to return, I know I have a choice. I think of Kathy and her nervous laughter. I remember Central Park in spring. My memory is jam packed with missing Tupperware, unpaid medical bills. That time I did have lice and not just the eggs, but actual bugs. Good news, bad news, the truly horrible news of the world.
Go Fuck Yourself!
No, just keep going.
A MEDITATION
This week, I’ll hand our meditation over to Pema Chodron herself. Many of you have asked me how to begin a meditation practice. Find a quiet spot, and give this a try. When we’re calm and aware, we can be a little less weird, scared, and confused! I think we can also best help others.
Sending my love to you all at this moment in our world. Take care of each other. May all beings be safe, happy, healthy, and FREE.
Let me know how it goes.
xx Alexa
SAVE THE DATE!
On March 31 3-4pm EST, I’ll be leading our first writing workshop for paid subscribers. We’ll do a grounding meditation, a free-write from one of my favorite prompts, and there’ll be time to share (or not) and say hi. Writers, non-writers, writer-curious, all are welcome.
Register HERE.
Consider upgrading to a paid subscription if you’d like to take part in these monthly workshops. (And, if my offerings are nourishing for you but you don’t have the funds right now, just shoot me an email and I’ll gift you a subscription, no questions asked, believe me, I get it. alexa@alexawilding.com). You can also give a gift subscription to a friend who might want to be part of this, too.
I hope to see you there!
Much gratitude xx
Love you, Ed <3
Thank you :)