Who Am I Now?
It’s the eternal sadness from the Great Beyond. Everything’s coming and everything’s gone. ~ Donna the Buffalo
I feel like I’ve been around the world in eighty days, although it’s only been twenty-one days that I’ve been vacationing up and down the east coast of Massachusetts, Delaware, and Virginia by plane, car, and bike. Now, at the end of my summer travels, I’m like a split personality with pieces of me left behind in different places.
While in Hull visiting my family, my life in Floyd faded away. The more I connected with the roots of my past, rode my bike up and down the beach town streets of my childhood, and spent quality time with family members; the more my life in Floyd began to feel like a dream. It felt like how I imagine it would be to let go of my life through death and then re-awaken to a new reality.
After ten days in Hull, I had one day at home in Floyd before heading out again with Joe to visit his family in Bethany Beach. There, in the midst of days spent on the beach and hours spent being immersed in the ocean, there were group dynamics, tourist traffic, and large meals cooked by teamwork to navigate. Children were about and family and family friends floated in and out of the large beach house.
Usually when I travel, I eventually hit a speed bump where I become over-sensitive to my surroundings. As the weeks of being away from home wore on, bouts of melancholy came over me in waves. Had I missed the opportunity to absorb my trip to Hull or grieve leaving it by adding a second trip on top of the first?
I had missed two Spoken Word Events and several of my Writer’s Circles. I abandoned my garden during peak harvest, and haven’t had anything in the newspaper for a few weeks (with nothing in mind for upcoming issues). Who was I without these familiar activities? I felt distant from my sons who are grown and involved in their own lives. Feeling nostalgic for my youth in Hull, for my sons as children, and for the Floyd of my past, I said to Joe, “I don’t know myself here. I’m empty of ideas. I’ve lost my place and my momentum.” But what was all that momentum ultimately for? With the busyness of my life routines ceased, I seemed to be tapping into a groundswell of sadness.
As one who strives to take responsibility for my own happiness, I investigated why I felt out of my element and what ‘being in my element’ might mean. Routine, comfort, familiarity, safety, and periods of solitude all came to mind. But it wasn’t until I spent some time alone at the beach, swimming, snapping pictures, and writing that the full answer came to me. “Whenever I’m engaged in my own creativity, that’s when I feel at home,” I happily updated Joe later that day.
While in Hull, I drew sustenance from walking the beach each night at sunset. On my last day of beach vacations I watched the sunset through the windshield of our car while Joe drove us home. Listening to Ziggy Marley sing Tomorrow People … you don’t own the past … you won’t own the future … I felt emotional watching the Blue Ridge Mountains come into view. But I couldn’t tell if the mountains were those of my past, present, or future. “You can travel miles but not time,” I said to Joe. Joe said having his identity stripped down always feels exciting to him, like a chance to begin anew. I said it felt confusing and deeply bittersweet. It was then that I realized that the sadness I had been feeling was related to the ultimate truth, the fact that nothing and no one lasts.
Making the climb up the mountain, I knew I had caught a glimpse of the beginning of a new life stage, one that involved letting go of life’s attachments. I also knew that with each chore done, each meal prepared, each meaningful conversation engaged in, and each spontaneous idea followed, I would find my footing again, and that through these life activities, step by step, I would feel at home in the world again.
August 22nd, 2008 10:54 am
You’ve tapped into the universal human condition in this post! Perhaps there’s something going on with the planets…for this sense to be popping out all over at the same time. I dunno. Lately, my whole life…past and present… seems like a dream. Where am I? Where do I need to be? Does it matter? Love that opening quote, by the way.
August 22nd, 2008 10:57 am
i feel the melancholy you describe whenever i move….no matter if it is a wonderful new home we move into or not. displaced. depressed. uprooted. it is months before i recover.
very thought provoking post.
August 22nd, 2008 11:02 am
I usually feel this way at the end of the summer whether or not I travel, but this year, being away so long, added to it. More is not always better. The feeling seems to get stronger as I age. Sort of like a mini-death or in preparation for the real thing.
August 22nd, 2008 11:22 am
Thanks for sharing all that has transpired on your travels and is transpiring in your life. I usually hold on until I’m forced to let go. Just reading this post I felt, in myself, the sense of Someone taking my grasping fingers and ever so gently prying them from their usual tight grasp. “you don’t own the past….you won’t own the future” Yeah.
August 22nd, 2008 2:44 pm
you can not know it, but you can be it
at ease in your own life
Lao Tzu
August 23rd, 2008 5:03 am
This is such an interesting post, Colleen….And I understand that feeling of sadness and meloncholy and of feeling at sea as to who I am….I couldn’t agree more about being away from one’s creativity….Because one’s creativity does define one—At least I know mine defines me. It is what keeps me connected to my real self and my place in my life. There is no question that things certainly change as we get older—so many things about age really really suck! Another reason it is so important to stay connected to your creativity. It knows no “age”….!
August 23rd, 2008 9:55 am
tearfully it is so it is so..I wish I could bundle it all up and keep it in one place to take it all out and experience it again when I want – but it slips away too too fast., and so I go on– treasuring each day
August 23rd, 2008 10:18 am
thank you for expressing so well what I, too, have been going through. Two months now up here in northern Maine, my comfortable home routine totally destroyed, seeing old friends and struggling to recall names, 8 of us together in this old farmhouse, cooking together or in separate groups.
Enjoying talks with my daughter when she isn’t running off into the woods with her new darlin’ guy (after 10.5 years widowed)marveling at my grandkids’ having become adults or near-adults. (How can my 10-year-old Anna be allowed to drive?? Daughter: Mom, she’s 16 now, repeat after me, 16.)
I will have to blog about it, of course, but the feeling of falling off the edge of my structured world is all-powerful. (Not to mention air mattresses on top of regular mattresses that dump you onto the floor if the other person doesn’t stay motionless when you get up to head to the bathroom!!!)
August 23rd, 2008 10:23 am
Very interesting observations, Colleen. During my recent trip back home for my reunion, I was having a very good time, but I longed for the comforts of my current home (and my computer). I pondered how it would feel to return there full-time; living among my childhood peers and some new-found family and friends. It would be too different, I decided, for these old bones. Give me the status-quo any day.
August 23rd, 2008 2:15 pm
Welcome home!
August 23rd, 2008 2:36 pm
We can always count on you to paint such a vivid picture of whatever you’re up to, Colleen. What I find neat about this particular reflection is the way each place you’ve been seems to shape and color you as you pass through and spend time.
Hmm, maybe that’s why we all travel in the first place.
August 23rd, 2008 4:32 pm
nod, hard-won understanding.
August 23rd, 2008 7:12 pm
I’ve found that turning 57 this summer has launched me into a review of where I am now, as opposed to where I thought I was. My motivations have changed without me realizing it. There really are distinct life stages it seems and when you propel yourself backward, or outward on top of “stage negotiation” it can make you dizzy indeed! As always, thanks for sharing.
August 24th, 2008 5:33 am
Thank you for this post, dear Colleen. I had been dreading going up north (away from the familiarity of home) to visit my husband’s family and stay at their cottage. I’m not a cottager by any stretch of the imagination, so although I have agreed to this, I woke up in the wee hours, in a cold sweat (not menopausal for once) and got up to go online for a spell.
Your words have restored in me a sense of possibility with this trip. I know that however “out of my element” I may be “Whenever I’m engaged in my own creativity, that’s when I feel at home,” if I am creating while I’m there, I will surely feel better about things. Your words have given me great comfort.
Having said that, there’s nothing like coming home to your own bed, is there?
Kat
August 24th, 2008 6:40 am
Col, Take comfort in knowing that you have touched a familiar cord with this post (this is what good writing does). It is so REAL.
“Bloom where you’re planted” comes to mind…seems rather trite after such thoughtful comments by others but I’ll say it anyway because, actually, you’re pretty good at doing just that. And interestingly, it’s this contradictory nature of Life that wears us out.
August 25th, 2008 9:43 am
I think sometimes it is good to step away and out of our lives. Maybe it renews us or sharpens our perspectives when we step back in. I find the more I’m gone, the more I appreciate the quiet of my patio and tranquility of sitting on my dock by the pond with the dogs and cats in the evening. Nothing I do seems to make me happier than that moment of peace. I wouldn’t appreciate it if I never left home.
August 25th, 2008 10:46 am
These words, of yours, really hit home with me:
“I said it felt confusing and deeply bittersweet. It was then that I realized that the sadness I had been feeling was related to the ultimate truth, the fact that nothing and no one lasts.”
I have been doing some self-work/healing with the concepts of “focusing” and “releasing” recently…it’s all about what you said above.
Hugs!
Susan
April 22nd, 2015 4:45 pm
[…] 4. “As one who strives to take responsibility for my own happiness, I investigated why I felt out of my element and what ‘being in my element’ might mean. Routine, comfort, familiarity, safety, and periods of solitude all came to mind. But it wasn’t until I spent some time alone at the beach, swimming, snapping pictures, and writing that the full answer came to me. Whenever I’m engaged in my own creativity, that’s when I feel at home.” – More from a 2008 post titled Who Am I Now? HERE. […]