Just Keep Living

Two people I work with told me they were proud of me this week, and about something completely unrelated to work. It was unexpected, yet very welcome. As we go about our lives, it can be easy to forget how the little things we do are actually big things. Things that matter. Things that can make a huge difference in the trajectory of our lives. Things that both check and challenge us. Things that can even be, magical. We’re with ourselves our whole lives, so to have someone see us, see what we do, and point to its significance—that can be powerful. 

Writing hasn’t been a part of my 2022 rhythms. The last time I posted was January 1. I’ve talked about writing. I’ve thought about writing. I’ve sat down to write, but come up empty. I applied for a job around writing. I did a little freelance copywriting. I created some writing content for a friend’s website. I took notes about things I wanted to write and even started to write, but stopped. I bring up writing in therapy, like, every other session. I was even told from people that don’t know me that I need to be writing. I feel a little like a fraud. What do the kids call it these days—imposter syndrome? Yup. That’s what I’ve got. 

This year has been important for me.

Nothing extraordinary happened—it felt like regular days spilling into each other and then I find myself with only 15 days left of the year and wonder what happened, where time went, and what the year held. 

And that’s when I realize that my ordinary has actually been extraordinary.

I got my own place. It’s the perfect space for me, near the ocean, quiet, simple, with a very tall shower head and a dutch door as the cherry on top. It’s been strange to call it my home—it took me almost 2 months to get a couch, I still only have 2 sets of flatware (one is plastic and the other bamboo) and am making do in my kitchen, my living space, my little porch with the few things I have. The holiday season has always been special for my family growing up and in my past relationship, but I almost didn’t decorate or get a tree. Then I did. A perfect little douglas fir with slanted bottom branches and a crooked top that fits my space just right. I pulled out some of my little treasures and a stocking my aunt made me when I was baby. It’s not my aesthetic at all any longer, but I love that I still have it and it can warm my space. Tiny treasures are tucked around this tiny abode, and most might not see them, but I do. They make me happy. They feel settling and familiar. Still, it feels strange for this to be called home. 

I think I’m getting there though. I just need a little more time.

Moving out on my own is extraordinary. 

Jessie and I still meet almost weekly. Jessie’s my therapist and this month makes 3 years and 9 months that we’ve been together. It’s my second longest intimate relationship. That’s also pretty extraordinary. 

In recent conversations with Jessie (also known as therapy), I’ve come back to talking about this constant okay-ness that I’ve felt—a settled calm. It’s a strange new normal for me that’s required a reorienting of how I interact with the world, identifying new ways of motivation, understanding what I want and need and how I’m feeling against this new backdrop vs. one of grief. It’s evidence that the work I’ve been doing, work that has just felt like a lot of tiny little realizations and adjustments, is actually doing something.

The work is extraordinary. 

Do you have people in your life that show up for you? Do you show up for people?

I hope so. In both accounts. 

There was this tall Ikea shelf I bought for my bathroom that was still in the box leaning against the wall for months. I was going to put it together soon, tomorrow, even. Tomorrow became yesterday and yesterday became a long time ago. And then one of my people showed up. The last thing I was interested in doing was spending our precious time putting together an Ikea shelf, but she practically forced me to do it. Okay, she didn’t force me. Instead, she said something simple and profound, “This is what we do, Lindsey. We show up and help out. And now every time you look at the shelf, you’ll think of me.” The shelf is now built and standing in the bathroom…still mostly empty. My friend has randomly text me asking if I’ve filled the shelf yet—twice. She’s not asking about the shelf. She’s checking in on me. She’s showing up, even when we don’t live near each other. 

After she left, I opened the closest thing I have to a junk drawer and there was note left there for me. I won’t share everything she wrote, because it’s for me. But I will share the last line that I think is for everyone.

“Your home is already a home. So just keep living.”

Ever since the divorce, I’ve wanted to travel on my own. It felt like an important milestone in exploring my independence and individual identity. Grief and a pandemic impacted that from happening in a way that I’d envisioned. I did take a month long road trip all over California, through Oregon, into Washington and up to Tofino. Old, familiar places. New places. Old places with new people. New places with familiar people. I drove through late season snowstorms, surfed cold, Canadian waters, cross-country skied for the first time, annihilated a rim and tire, cuddled favorite friends, sat in saunas and hot tubs, slept in my car at rest stops, took ferries and back roads and front roads, highways and byways and drove for miles, more miles than I needed, and pretended to work in the midst of it all. 

Looking back on it, that also was something very special, something extraordinary.

Oh, and I did finally travel on my own in the way I’d wanted—to Paris actually and I just got back. It was a last minute trip encouraged by unused vacation days from work and stumbling upon a very cheap ticket. Yeah, I can’t believe it either. I went. I’m back. I did it. All by myself.

It was a quick week, but a week filled with wandering feet and a wondering heart. I had this grand vision of sitting in cafés, alongside a city of creatives, sipping espresso inspired to write so much that it would make up for my lack of writing the rest of this year. Silly me. I sat in only one proper Parisian café the entire trip, and only because I had a checklist of 8 things to do from some dear friends of mine, and I was determined to do everything set out for me on the list. One café. For less than one hour. I wrote one poem; if you could even call it that. (Writing a poem was also on my checklist, so not exactly motivated by an outpouring of creativity from being surrounded by centuries of artists before me.) In this poem, I babbled on about the city lights of Paris, reaching for interesting ways to describe something that is so magical it can hardly be captured by the most inspired words, and surely not by forced poesy.

Okay so sure, I wrote in Paris. “Wrote” in Paris. But Paris wasn’t really about writing. I think that’s why I don’t really have regret around not writing while there. 

And that’s why my coworkers told me they were proud of me. Because I went to Paris. Alone. Just to be in Paris. Alone.

Alone. And never once feeling lonely.

Extraordinary. 

Absolutely extraordinary. 

Against the backdrop of steadiness, the things that have been quite remarkable haven’t exactly felt as such. Sure, I notice shifts here and there. I know that they matter. But my experiencing and reaching of them hasn’t been about filling my life with exciting things to share with the world, as if to prove my life means something. Though subconscious, I think that’s what it’s been in the past. This year? It’s been a natural step. The right place, the right time, the right people. Tiny treasures tucked away in this tiny abode of my heart. Others may not notice them, but I do, and they make me happy. 

But there are some that do notice them. 

And name them, unprompted. 

And that’s when I remember not only that they happened, but that they truly are extraordinary.