Living in the land of unicorns

I have always considered myself to be a very realistic person. Some might even say cynical. I have been known to accuse other people who I felt were not in touch with reality as "living in the land of unicorns."

Like all insults I throw, this one too may have been more projection than anything else.

Because, for the longest time I really believed in my heart of hearts that difficulty in life was temporary. I believed I would reach some golden point when I would be out of whatever problematic situation I was currently in, and there would be a kind of perpetual peace. Always, I looked forward to those times.Whether it was simply being a high school student looking forward to college without curfews and parents, or a college student in a southern town imagining a job where she wouldn't have to wear pearls or be condescended to. However big or small, I thought times of difficulty were going to definitively, or at least mostly, end. I just had to get through whatever thing I was in the midst of. And then I'd end up in one of those Christmas ads for hot cocoa, except that would be my entire life.

I can remember distinctly saying, just a week before my brother died "no one else can die or get sick this year. I just cannot handle it." I thought I could get to that golden place of having a break. I had already had a year and a half of grief and tragedy and one setback after another. Surely I was done. But apparently my words did not hold the power to stop the earth on its axis.

And it goes on.

This week, one person I care about has been in the hospital, another has stage IV cancer, and an assault of a woman happened just outside of my home, where I walk my dog, alone, daily. More people are dead too. In case you're wondering. Because a golden time when nobody dies will never actually come.

So this is life. This isn't black thinking. This is actually, really, unavoidably, part of life. It may not be *all* of life. But my illusion that I would reach a point in time when all suffering would cease was built on unreality. There is not in fact a land of unicorns waiting for me in my twenties, or thirties or forties.

I think about how my brother opted out. I think about the other people in my life who have opted out. This was all too much for them. I've never fully been able to understand them, but, I can understand this:

Life is like this. It can feel relentless.

Someone asked me how I got through Friday, my brother's birthday. "I went to work and tried not to think about it too much," I said. She replied "I feel like I've been trying to do that for thirteen years."

So, I know I am not alone in this. We all try to make the most of what we have. And that is noble and good and worthwhile.

But I have been operating under the illusion that all of that would return me to some childhood land of unicorns where rainbows filled the sky and music would play in the air and I would eat mushrooms made of chocolate. Figuratively, anyway. Maybe my adult version looked more like a home with a big fenced in yard for my dog, and a partner and babies and a career that meant the world to me and a quiet sense of purpose that kept me warm at night. I just had to wait it out.

In other words, I was waiting for a world that lacked doubt, confusion, grief or tragedy. And that is the catch. We all may have moments like that. I sure hope we do. But an entire world of that does not exist.

I suspect that many of you have known about this all along. That the land of unicorns was not coming. Though I also suspect some of you try to live in that world, just as I'd hoped to.

Finally, with a 5am email yesterday about two people killed senselessly in a break-in, my fantasy shattered. David Bowie is no longer dancing with me in my princess costume at a masquerade. I have a headache and I'm in a junk yard.

I get it. This is not a game of Candy Land. I am not going to the Candy Castle. I will not discover I'm a wizard and get to stop living in the broom closet. And no, my shoe is not going to fall off at some ball.

My mom always joked that I was a teenager by ten, and ready for college at fourteen. And maybe that was true. But it wasn't the whole truth. Because I feel like I have had to grow up all over again this year.

Perhaps now there is space for something more real, and more lasting and more satisfying.

Now I'm left with a new question. Which is really a million questions. So if this land of unicorns doesn't exist, where do I plan on living out my life? What does that look like? And how do I get there? Am I already there? If it's not about waiting for this current thing to pass and then starting over in a candy filled land of hot cocoa mugs, what is it about? And how do I make sense of it all?

Because if the unicorns aren't coming, and this is all we get, I need to find a way to make peace with the ground falling away underneath me. Over and over and over again. Because I can't hold it there. And if I just keep waiting for it to come back, I have a feeling I will wake up a very old woman, wondering where my life went... with a very disturbing collection of ceramic friends on her walls.

Here's to not waiting for that to happen...


Namaste.