“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First to get go of life.
Finally to take a step without feet.”
– Rumi

A few days ago, my girl turned twenty. Also few days ago, my erstwhile marriage turned thirty. With these simultaneous passages of time, I felt a separation of reality and measure.

With the latter milestone—easier to parse, insight-wise—I noted that I have been divorced for half of the life of my marriage. Twenty in, ten out. That is to say, I officially have completed the half-life of grief, by a literal measuring stick. I had a little half-life party and celebrated, feeling readier now than ever for my next adventures.

Regarding the former milestone, I once wrote from the trenches of parenting-a-teen, defining the countdown to G’s eighteenth birthday, when I blithely imagined that I would get my golden ticket. I found a tool that created a countdown calendar. Looking back, it amuses me that the idea of 900-1000 days gave me solace! https://whereiendandshebegins.com/2017/01/01/new-years-counting-down/

Little then did I know all of the water under the bridge that would happen from eighteen onward, thanks to ongoing human development and global health. Little then did I know I would touch a dream and have to give it back. Little then did I know so many years of uncertainty would stretch before me. I am glad I didn’t know then what I know now. I have always wanted ESP. I am grateful I don’t have it.

*

Over the past eight years since G slipped out of childhood, she emerged into someone who knew—nay insisted—on her story. Demanding she be heard, more through pain than words. Defending her stance, more through action than argument. Believing no one heard her. Crying to me and fighting the others.

One day early in the fall of her seventh grade, I remember seeing her bike, abandoned haphazardly at the end of our lane, and thinking: I could lose her if I don’t listen. She will disappear. (I fear disappearance perhaps more than anything.) Her insistence on her own vision was stronger than any argument I could formulate to keep her on the traditional trajectory I had in mind. Pay attention, I sensed rather than heard, fearing more than feeling.

So I did. This was a challenge and sometimes scary, but not a dark night of the soul. It was a trial of sorts that involved getting outrageously far out of my comfort zone. Driving across the country, finding places to go, to stay, to find food, to shower, to do laundry. Always before sundown. Praying each night we were safe. Blessing the dog beside us who could give us clues of jeopardy. And then surviving and being proud, cherishing the memories now safely secured in the past. This is a pattern. I do what I fear, afraid. I live through the fear, and rejoice. I never want to do it again, but it seems I do anyway.

My first dark night of the soul as a parent was when G decided to live with her dad after getting me to overcome all of my fears to move us, pets and all, into the city. She was bold. She was brave. Her actions were essential. She always seems to know this. But at the time, in the living, it was agony for me.

I survived because I prayed. But also because I had a friend who was my guide. I talked with her. I drove home to her. I unloaded with her. In the times that I was alone, I thought: I will make it through today, and I will tell her. She believes I can make it, so I will. She is the motor for my moment. She gave me fuel and had little to no idea that’s what she was doing. I didn’t reach out to her half as often as I wished, but the mere idea of her was enough to get me to run the machine that was my body and heart, in tandem. Eventually I woke up and realized I was a twenty minute subway ride from my favorite places in the world. After that shift, I upped the ante and tested myself: each day do something courageous. Accept every invitation. Uncover the self that is you, beneath motherhood, partnership and history. Explore something new. These were the first steps. I could breathe. And I felt better. Sometimes I would just think about telling her things, and I could breathe more easily.

Time went on, as time will do. Until the next pass. The next time when I felt completely out of sync with what I could handle in this world. At this point, I prayed, and I had another friend whom I did not call half as often as I wished. But I knew I could call her anytime. When things got darker than dark, I called in tears, in fear and doubt, and she held me in her words. You will be alright. You can do this. You are strong. I could breathe. And I felt better. Again. Sometimes I would just think about telling her things, and I could breathe more easily.

And time went on, as time will do. Until the next pass. The next time when I felt completely out of sync with what I could handle in this world. At this point I prayed, and I had another, different friend whom I did not call half as often as I wished. But I knew I could call anytime. When things got darker—but in fact a little bit less dark than the previous two darkest nights—I called in tears, in fear and doubt, and I asked her to tell me a few good things about myself because I couldn’t think of any. The world was pushing so much negativity I couldn’t hear anything else. She did. I could breathe. And I felt better. Again. Sometimes I would just think about telling her things, and I could breathe more easily.

And time went on, as time will do. Until fairly recently when I felt completely out of sync with what I could handle in this world. Beginning to feel like there was no way to fix my situation, I surrendered into numbness. Nothing can hurt if I don’t let myself feel in the first place. This time I met someone brand new. Someone I found when the cage of my commitments opened briefly, and I flew out, bright, free and purely me without duty. Someone with whom I share a history of parallel lives yet previously invisible to one another. In the finding, we dip into the past, the present and the future, finding newness in each. I feel young again because of this range of our instruments. What is age if you can see me there, if I can see you then, if only in our imagination?

Even though now is far from the darkest of nights, I am still intermittently lifting heavy weights. These days the hardest part is seeing the path, the purpose, the direction and the parameters of my responsibility. I am a person who trusts, a person who seeks, a person who believes, and a person who completes. This mission, the mission of parenting, offers no such guidelines or countdown calendar. Infamous for its lack of validation, it also offers no timeline, no certainty, no warranty, no guarantee.

In this morass of doubt and discerning, this new-yet-old, fresh-yet-familiar voice said something so meaningful it almost hurts to share: you are doing a good thing. You have found the main thing.

Soaking in those words of support, I see how I have been guided, not just by these recent gestures, but by many souls over the past eight years who have been nearby, often just in my imaginings, as I face the next minute, the next hour, the next day.

They have been the fuel for my showing up. Not that I wouldn’t or couldn’t have shown up without them, but their tangible support has given me the strength, tenacity and perseverance I needed to be the best parent I can be.

It happened again this week. A text that said, she is damned lucky to have you. Somehow it served like jet fuel: I zipped around, picking things up and making space, cleaning, clearing, delivering and being present. Just because someone believed in me, but more: said as much. Someone who doesn’t broker in false flattery. Someone whose words count to me in their content and sincerity.

*

When G was tiny, occasionally she would ask me for something when I was so bone tired I thought I couldn’t possibly do one more thing. Often late at night, when I already was lying down, and I would answer: I don’t think Cressey can. She is soooo tired, G.

But Love can. She will. What do you need?

And Love would get up and get her water, or change the blanket, or hide the slice of light sneaking in from behind the curtain. Or fix whatever it was she needed.

As her needs and desires matured, I reexamined this thinking. Maybe it wasn’t Love then, or maybe it wasn’t Love anymore. (Well, maybe it was simply Love when she was tiny.) But at some point, as she grew up, it became Faith.

A time came when G no longer asked me for one more thing, but there was a lot more I was supposed to know on instinct. When to step up and when to step back. When to answer and when to be silent. What to say and what not to say. Who to be and who not to be. The ambiguity of it all wildly unsettled me. The uncertainty of it all made me feel dizzy. The questions screamed at me while the answers were mute. I could not fix it with a glass of water or a closed curtain. I could not fix it at all.

Faith is the only one who could.

Looking over my right shoulder, I see each dark night with wiser eyes. The way that Faith got planted, nurtured and raised from seedling to today.

While it is true that my body awoke for the first time in motherhood—purpose made manifest, literally incarnated out of an idea—it remains a form of illusion. At its best, my body was a house containing nutrients that could feed. In its closeness, my body became a home containing love that could nurture.

As time passed, in its separation, my body became a place providing an island of safe return, no matter how far afield she traveled. To this day, wherever we are, this “me”-ness creates permission for all limits to be removed, all trappings of worldly defense left at the door. Although it can be hard, it is also an honor.

G continues to grow beyond the reach of where I end and she begins, and as she goes, I see that my body is now a place that, above all, is the house of Faith. Blind as I may feel, I touch truth, I touch trust, I touch possibility.

*

Initiated in Love, embodied in Faith, Hope walks the next rounds, guided by stepping-stones of light and by those who show up around me and say: Yes, you can. Yes, you are. I stand in faith next to you. You’ve already come this far. I can see more than you can see.

Love, Faith, and Hope breathe in reply: thank you for seeing us. Thank you for believing in us.

May it be so. I pray it is. I don’t know how to keep doing this in the dark. And yet I do and I will.

Until the moment passes, I cannot see it clearly.

Until I am no longer needed, I cannot know that I am.

In the interim, I find in my heart a desire to thank every bright light who has shown up for us over the past twenty years. Thank you for helping us travel toward that secret sky, as we discover and release all the veils that obscure us from flight.

With much love.