Today, my work laptop decided to die. Do not resuscitate. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Nothing makes us more aware of how dependent we are upon technology than when it leaves us. I was still able to attend conference calls and be of some use, but it felt like flying blind. Like being in the airplane's cockpit back in the days when you only had your controls and your wits to guide you, and poof – a fog bank encapsulates your plane. No, I’m not comparing myself to Amelia Earhart. It wasn't that courageous. But it was that foggy. Fortunately, I speak fluent fog. I was able to work through it. And garnered a new laptop in the process.
While my laptop was dead and I was on conference calls, I dug through some old photo CDs, viewing them on my personal laptop. (Do you feel my personal strife? I had to switch rooms and laptops to remain “connected”. Heaven forbid I listen on a call without a visual to sustain me. Oh – the horror. I will be ok…in time.). I came across a CD my friend Johna gifted me with in October 2007.
Johna and I met at Cornell College in 1991. We have seen each other through many life events in the years since that introduction. 2007 was a major transitional year for me. I was going through a divorce from a partner I’d been with since 1997. I had a 3 year-old whom I was horrified to make a child of divorce. I had left my job to stay home with Aria after losing my work/life balance only to find that I needed to return to a job for financial reasons. I had just bought a house while still contracting and was unsure what my permanent income would be. I’d enrolled Aria in Montessori pre-school but had to take her to another daycare for a few months in the interim. Every plan you make when you are married about career goals, home plans (we were seeking to buy land and build a home), and the basic fabric of two lives intertwined dissolved. I was a ship without safe harbor. I felt at once hopeful and lost.
I’d been in a relationship from about ages 24-34. I had just started to truly become centered within myself within my 30s. Becoming a mother had a profound impact on me. I was overly malleable with the men in my world prior to Aria. If you've seen Runaway Bride, I was a bit Julia Robert-esque in that I sank all of my worth into my partner, giving them the permission to appraise my value. Melding myself to be pleasing to them without considering if it was true to me. When my daughter came along (10 months after I was married), I still wanted to be a wonderful wife, but it became equally important to be a strong woman. It turned out that my marriage couldn’t make the transition. It was built upon that pandering girl and didn't have much respect for her voice or thoughts. I hold no blame for the dissolution of my marriage. I did not request the divorce, but I embraced it once it happened. It was a gift.
Back to Cornell. October 2007. Newly mid-divorce me. It was one of the first weekends where my ex took Aria for a night. As a parent, I did not have children so I could be away from them. It was incredibly difficult to adjust to not having Aria nearby. Sort of like when you forget your purse or cell phone at home and keep reaching for it – a phantom ache you want to rub and make feel better. But in your heart where it's unreachable. Johna was at Cornell for an event, and so we got a B&B room and spent some time. It was a welcome escape.
She took me around campus and encouraged me to connect with the woman in me while taking photos of that transformation. This may sound silly to you. It was good therapy for me. I had no idea how to take a photo like a woman. With one of my closest friends, I felt shy in front of that camera.
In the divorce process, I became hyper-focused on my daughter and her needs during the divorce. Guilt does this, as did my focus on healing every ouch within my own childhood through being an exceptional mama to my daughter. Giving myself a little time at a B&B with an insightful friend was soul therapy. Mama should only be one role (and yes, a vital one) played by a woman. This weekend reminded me of that.
At Cornell, we had a Director of Intercultural Life (or some such title) named Jack. Jack put together these amazing slideshows with pictures of students around campus. These were shown via projector on the Orange Carpet (a Cornell thing). I adore those memories of being huddled close to friends with the lights dimmed, watching snippets of what I knew even at the time to be glory days.
This was the soundtrack to at least one of those slideshows. Thank you, Cornell, for helping to introduce me to myself in various eras of my life. Thank you, Johna, for helping me re-claim me. I am curious if I went back for a photo shoot now how different I’d feel in my own skin. I think I could nail it.
Lovely tribute to a time that can certainly serve as a barometer for the look-how-far-you've-come of your current life, level of confidence, and moxy. I feel honored at the mention, and privileged to have been a small part of your re-discovery of you. Shy though you may have felt, your vitality and beauty were on full display during that photo shoot, even then. I feel blessed to understand the sentiment you describe yourself feeling in 2007 in a way I could not before I had my own son, and certainly did not back in 2007. I hope upon hope I did and said the right things, in my pre-baby ignorance. There has never been a girl weekend that has not contained great food, great inspiration, and great connection/catharsis, and yet, mired in my own journey and desire to develop/fortify my roles as wife and mother, I have not made time for our weekends as often as I should. Thank you for your patience with me, while I catch up. Thank you for your abiding friendship. I'm glad we both reflect with such joy on our weekends together, and that we've carved out time for the next one in just a few weeks. Maybe we'll shoot a few photos while we're there. Love.
ReplyDelete