I left Kodiak five years ago today. Alaska fundamentally changed my being. Largely, because my son was born that first winter there. Of course, becoming a parent for the first time changes us all. But it also changed me because that's where I learned the value of community. It's where many of the friendships I cherish the most were forged. Alaska also gave me an understanding of how light and darkness are both equally powerful forces; forces that should be respected and should be regarded for their control and influence.
The end of my time in Kodiak was dark. Even though it was summer and there was nearly 20 hours of light in every day, it was dismal. I had finally found my place in a community and I was beginning to understand my role as a mother, friend, advocate. But I was leaving this place that I had a purpose in. My marriage was deteriorating very quickly. I had spent six months being told that I had failed as a wife, which is possible. I had spent six month trying to be as far away from that conversation as I could get. I got tired of being told I was going to be left. It was an infuriating discussion that was on repeat and I couldn't turn down the volume.
So, as so often happens when life is beyond reason, I was drinking a lot. I was going to seedy bars and talking too much and too loudly. My marriage segued from emotionally destructive to physically disastrous. While I had been the victim of the initial emotional threats, I became the physical aggressor. I was the perpetrator. I came home from bars drunk, looking for fights. And I always got what I wanted because the fights ensued. And not the kind of fights you can take back. The kind of fights that resulted in being physically restrained in hotel hallways. It was a dark time. It was a period that looking at myself in the mirror made me nauseous. It was a time I didn't ever think I would get out of. And I had no idea what was coming next.
I had agreed to come back to California to be a family. At the very least, I agreed to come back to be closer to my people. But the uglier things got, the uglier I became, I didn't know if I could maintain the lifestyle. So, instead of coming here, I went to Texas instead. I got on a plane with my son and flew to Houston and I didn't know how long I was going to be there. Or if I would ever leave. My marriage had turned into a nightmare. The kind of nightmare that you wake up from, in the middle of the night, scared to go back to sleep because you know it's just going to pick up right where it left off. I didn't think I could do it. In fact, I knew I couldn't do it anymore. My life was a fucking cataclysmic tsunami. I couldn't exist like that anymore.
That was five years ago now. I was convinced that I was at my absolute worst then. In hindsight, I can tell you, with all honestly, that was the ugliest I have ever been. But that was NOT, by far, my absolute worst. The last five years have brought much more detriment than that June five years ago. And right now, I am absolutely in another one of those really difficult places I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had never decided to come back from Texas. I wonder if I could have saved us all more so much uncertainty and heartache. A lot of tragedy came with me when I flew back to California When I revisit my decision to come here, I wonder about it as if I could rewrite history, as if I could go back and make things different.
But then I think about all of the other shit that has happened over the last five years. The love. The friendships. The people who have enhanced my life whether I wanted them to or not. The people who have relieved me of my prejudices. Those who have let me hold them when they were at their most frail. The people who have insisted that they hold me when I was convinced I was broken. The beginnings. The endings. The reunions. The human experience that only comes with living life on life's terms. All the life that has to be lived before you can honestly understand its value. That's when I see that the hard times that have come and gone aren't the story. I can't rewrite the stories.
I'm starting to see these two Junes, five years apart, as bookends. The bookends hold the stories in place so they don't fall down. Bookends are decorative and dramatic. And really heavy. They have to be to keep it all in order. They scream "LOOK AT ME! I'm holding all of this together." But the bookends aren't the actual story. They aren't the details. They aren't what's important.
-Inner Peas
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