Being Done
this was the best and brightest light of my past weekend, breakfast with my lovely in the sun: off-brand (natural-ish) pop tarts and a grapefruit and coffee (some with marshmallows in it), we’re a little fancy.
Did you ever take chemistry? I did. I worked really hard at it, and got really good at it. I felt so incredibly satisfied when I overcame the I can’t do this and it clicked in my head and made sense. Equation after equation, I understood it all–even helped other people with it. And as it got more complicated, I kept adding to my knowledge and rising to challenges and I felt so strong. I loved it. But I’m not a chemist, I’m a writer, so I haven’t practiced chemistry in a while. Now my son is taking chemistry and a few weeks ago he asked me for help with his homework and I was so excited to help. I looked at it and his worksheet and it looked like a language I used to speak–vaguely familiar but I didn’t understand what was going on anymore. What? I’d spent so long learning that. I’d gotten so good at it. And now I didn’t remember it at all. I pulled out my old textbook (yes, I still have it) and looked stuff up and relearned it and then I could help.
There’s sometimes this pressure to have arrived somewhere. To be through the shit and wise and better. Fully and finally. But I’m sorry to report, having been through for a while now, that there isn’t a static, complete, final ending. Some scars are permanently tender. It’s frustrating and exhausting, for sure, but infinitely less so when you come to the terms with the fact that that’s also just how it’s supposed to be. It isn’t some great failure on your part to not be all done with it and better. You will need to relearn the same things you worked so hard to know well. You will need to re-forget the things you thought you’d put behind you. Maybe the progress is not about having arrived somewhere and knowing how to do things once and for all, but shortening the amount of time it takes to relearn when you need to.
This week, one of my favorite emerging poets brought me this poem, which gutted me. The box of who you were (or your journal, which I know you’re keeping, dated and diligently) is like the text book. What are the lessons that you’ve forgotten lately and need right now? Or, what are the lessons you feel good about knowing now and want to leave as a message in a box for your future self, who will come back needing it?
Post some poems here, or email them to me, or just leave them in your notebook. But write. And think. And learn and relearn.
