From the Department of Life

Three years ago, I watched fireworks from the front lawn of the U.S. Capitol, blocks away from my summer stint at a youth policy non-profit. They shot through the sky and burst above the Washington monument. Electrified, I held my chin up to the night. Their spider legs reached down for us until they faded into smoke trails and eventually disappeared into the dark sky. We walked home through the humidity and fell into a content sleep to the hum of the air conditioner. 

Two years ago, I sat home alone on their grandmother's old couch surrounded by stacks of blue BarBri books and a borrowed novel. My muscles stiff from trying to hold it together and my eyes strained from black print and gray, penciled-in bubbles. I turned the lights off, the television on, and stretched out across the couch. From states away, I watched the fireworks shoot through the sky and burst above the Washington monument. Then I watched a lightening bug blink on our covered porch, waiting for the rain to let up. It never did. My phone buzzed, "coming from the fireworks & walking by your old place!" I sat up, turned on the light, and reached for the novel.

In an effort to save her life, the main character quit her job as a corporate attorney and, in the last few pages, became a writer.

At 1am, I put the book down and cried. Hard.

I shut myself in the bathroom, because I didn't want my landlady upstairs to hear, and went through half a box of tissues. If I had a flare for the dramatic, I would have climbed into the antique, claw-foot bathtub. Instead, I turned on the sink water, sank to the floor in front of it and didn't move for 45 minutes. 

The book wasn't that good. I wasn't reacting to the book. I was reacting to my life.

life 
–noun
1. the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.

If only it was that simple.

I started dividing my life into distinct areas sometime during my first semester of law school - professional life, personal life, social life, family life. Which ironic, because that is precisely when I started to dedicated every breath I took to my professional life. At the expense of a personal life, social life, and family life. At the end of three years, I had to take inventory. Family and friends stood by, but I had to find out, how much of me is left?

I began to write again. Slowly, clumsily, terribly. But I wrote anyway. Its loyalty is unfailing; it always rescues me.

I am a professional at the intersection of public policy, advocacy, and positive youth development. I work in the non-profit sector. The term "non-profit" is misleading. There are profits; there are profits we keep. I believe in the work I do. 

The hours in this sector are long. There is too much to do and never enough resources or people to get it all done. The issues are complex and thorny. Shareholder wallets obsolete, this sector has to ask: what serves the greater good? I could eat, breath, and sleep this work. But this is not Life. This is a professional life.

I am so much better at a professional life than Life. But I know what happens when I confuse the two. I will not define myself by my profession. That declaration has become a personal mantra. Still, I often I feel myself slipping.

I have devoured books recently. Work travel gave me permission to spend time reading, and I didn't stop when I arrived back. I have consumed books at a rate my wallet hates, but my personal life loves. I negotiate sleeping hours to read and then to write. I found a book that has been on my list for years at a used book store: On Writing, by Stephen King. The perfect combination and the perfect timing. Recommended years ago, time and time again, but only now can I really appreciate every word, every punctuation mark, every lesson. "Am I a writer? Is that the key to my Life?" loops its way through my thoughts as I turn the pages.

Midway through, Stephen King writes: "Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around."

My theory shatters. I will not define myself by my profession holds up better under strict scrutiny. 

I am a professional. I am a writer. I am a friend. I am a family member. And I am so much more. As I move farther away from what once consumed my days (training to be an attorney in the private sector), I feel more like myself. Less often do I have to take inventory, how much of me is left? It's all still there, just buried. Some days I have to dig farther than others to find it. On Saturday afternoons it bubbles up and overflows. I drink it up and my cup runneth over. But on Wednesday mornings, I am parched. I am finding out that Life isn't a balancing act between a professional life and personal life (family life and social life). Rather, I think it's something unto itself that forms at the core. These different "divisions" of life are stirred and mixed and perhaps even baked to form something more than all its ingredient. And from this core, the rest rises. That's the Life I hope to create.

Constructed Lives

We pass over the East River on a bridge different than MetroNorth's.  Roll through Brooklyn in the fog.  The buildings peak but the gray swallows the skyline.  The same gray as my suit.  I convince myself that I have not disappeared and wonder why this internal conversation sounds familiar.  When else did I have to convince myself that I have not yet disappeared?  What was I doing then?

As we pull into Penn Station I'm stringing words together but sitting on my hands.  Afraid I will write myself out of my life.  A constructed life, I remind myself.  It waxes and wanes, but you're okay, I coax myself.  My hands still pressed against the fake leather seat.  Willing myself not to get off the train and run into the warm New York rain.  Feel it rush down my face.  Scrunch my nose at the smell of wet sidewalks and the stench of misplaced garbage. I turn up my ipod, take a deep breath, and text a friend - my fingers need something to do.  Dismiss the thought that this must be what a quit smoker feels like after kicking the addiction.  Dismiss the thought that NYC has become an unhealthy addiction.  Call it back because maybe that will keep me in my seat.

A woman with fast blackberry fingers sits down next to me.  I grab my coffee as we lurch out of Penn Station.  Try to figure out if I started holding my breath before or after we left the station.  Scramble for my pen and paper.  Declare myself in bold ink A WRITER to the pages of my moleskin. "Once In A Lifetime" crawls into my headphones, and I can't help but wonder what this moment means for my life.  We cross what I assume to be the mouth of the Hudson, and suddenly this train ride can't be long enough.

"You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here? [...]

You may ask yourself
Am I right?... Am I wrong?  [...]

You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here?" 

[Once In A Lifetime, Talking Heads]

These Words

Sometimes the words come spilling out, streaming faster than the fingers can type or faster than the wrist can turn.  I pull over into a southbound rest stop because the words can't wait for the exit, for the long drive home.  I spend the afternoon in a coffee shop because the words lose their way in Saturday afternoon errands, in the chitter-chatter of crowded stores, in the florescent lighting of the soap aisle.  Rushing, flowing, carving out new streams or faithfully following river beds already made, the words don't stop, so I stop for them.

Sometimes I wait, to say all the things I want to say, I need to say.  I wait until I have that invitation, that assurance that whatever I say, it's ready to be heard.  By then the words are already sorted, lined up, ready to be rolled out.  Practiced, rehearsed, seasoned.  They hit every step, every note, every beat.  Not effortlessly, but with ease, only because these words were birthed for this emergence.  They march forth, nod in my direction, hit their mark, and settle in.  Assured that they will accomplish what they must, I stand aside and watch with certainty and confidence.

Sometimes the words are heavy, stubborn, dead-weight.  I can't pick them up and move them.  So I drag them.  Out.  Into.  The.  Open.  Where they sit.  And pout.  I shove and kick and throw all of my body weight against them.  And they refuse to move.  So I rub them down, try to smooth their rugged sides, praise their weight, their stature, their strength. Slowly, calmly, sincerely, I try to relax each word, coax it to its place, show it how to trust its surroundings.  These words still don't budge.  The sit.  And look at me sideways.  So I throw myself to the ground in a grand gesture of defeat and exhaustion, let out a single shrill screech, and then let them be.  When they are the important ones, I let them be.  Unpolished, rough, and grainy, they sit there out in the open, untouched and important.