I felt it for the first time this morning–stepped out onto our porch with a cup of tea this morning and my toes were met with that crisp chill air meant to remind us that our summer days are coming to a close. Sitting out there as I drifted in and out of the book in my hands, even the sunlight looked different, softer and more forgiving than the sunlight in August.

Without meaning to do so, it seems my reading in 2017 has been focused on moving through as many of Alice Munro’s short story collections as I can lay my hands on. I’d read Dear Life, Runaway, and Open Secrets in the past few months before wrapping up Too Much Happiness this morning. I’ve enjoyed her writing so much that I’m thankful I’ve still got a way to go before I can say I’ve read all of her published works–in fact, if I weren’t such a fan of re-reading, I think I’d start reading just one or two of her stories a year to make sure she’d always show up on my reading list.

Anyway, there’s not a whole lot I can say in review that you couldn’t find just typing her name into a search browser–save to say, she can string a sentence together in the most marvelous way. If you haven’t already, please check some of her stuff out! (Many of her stories are available to read online!) Just make sure you let me know what you think afterward.

Before I go any further here, I’d like to share an excerpt from one of Munro’s stories, Child’s Play, that I finished reading this morning:

“Every year when you’re a child, you become a different person. Generally it’s in the fall, when you reenter school, take your place in a higher grade, leave behind the muddle and lethargy of the summer vacation. That’s when you register the change most sharply. Afterwards you are not sure of the month or year but the changes go on, just the same. For a long while the past drops away from you easily and it would seem automatically, properly. Its scenes don’t vanish so much as become irrelevant. And then there’s a switchback, what’s been all over and done with sprouting up fresh, wanting attention, even wanting you to do something about it, though it’s plain there is not on this Earth a thing to be done.” 

This passage resonated with me this morning and even though I continued reading past that paragraph, at least a couple of pages went by before I realized that my mind had wandered entirely away from the page in contemplation.

A year ago I was struggling, to put it out there neatly and concisely–I felt overwhelmed by life and getting out of bed each day felt like an effort. I’m a fan of listing things out, so here goes:

  • I was going through a whirlwind of a year with my job and struggling to find a single ounce of joy or fulfillment in my work.
  • I made a big leap and furthered the committment in my relationship by moving in with my boyfriend of three years and started building a home together.
  • I was still adjusting to a cross-country move of a close friend, a major component to my Chicago-based family and support system that I’d come to depend on a great deal. Coinciding with this one, I experienced a huge amount of change in my social network–shifting dynamics, people moving, people marrying, people baby-ing.
  • In the aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential Election, I felt divided from family members and friends. I struggled to keep lines of communication open and let myself become extremely frustrated and angry over hateful, close-minded, and uninformed rhetoric and actions. Feelings of helplessness and resentment ensued. (Note: This is all still a major and seemingly ever-growing issue in my life.)

I guess what I’m getting at is that list isn’t even everything–I could keep right on listing things–but those were the big things & it seemed like they were all happening at once. I felt overwhelmed, exhausted, and a painful and horrible-looking rash erupted nearly all over my body. Nothing I tried (multiple dermatologists, biopsies, medicated ointments, holostic remedies, phototherapy) was able to get it under control.

It just felt like I was broken and I had no idea how to fix or make things work again.

Somehow though, I did manage to get things turned around in the right direction little-by-little. It’s hard looking back to pinpoint where & when the turnaround started, but I like to think it was on a hike to see the Maroon Bells while away at my best friend’s wedding in Aspen, CO in late October last year. (That’s what would happen in the movie version, right? Man has nervous breakdown & is given perspective on how small he is in the grand scheme of things as he stands looking up at big mountains while birds sing in the background. Jake Gyllenhall would sign on to that project in a minute, I’m certain of it.)

The truth of the matter is a lot fuzzier though and definitely didn’t happen in some grand moment of epiphany in the wilderness. There was a moment of clarity and then it all went grey again. Or maybe a better way of thinking about it is that I felt like I’d been climbing a straight path up that metaphorical mountain and, without my noticing, the way became too steep. I tried to keep climbing upward when I should have been taking the switchbacks.

Which brings us back around to the pleasant morning I had and the lovely Alice Munro passage mentioned above–you knew I was going to bring it back to that at some point, right?

No matter how far I come in life, there’s something about this particular time of the year that invigorates the ability for change in me. I spent a lot of time over the past year alternating between feeling anxious over how messy the present felt and trying to recall and, subsequently, over-analyze every moment that had led me to that state of frustration. None of that helped move me forward or ease the weight I felt over all of it–and it definitely didn’t clear my skin up.

Perspective helps. And, who knows, maybe realizing how small I was looking up at those mountains did turn a light on inside of me?

As they say, what’s done is done. All that has led me here, my past, will always be a part of me–the choices I made, the choices I wish I’d made, the words and actions of those I’ve allowed to be a part of my story. It’s just important that I remember the only thing on earth to be done about any of it is to learn enough to make the moment I’m in now a better one.

It’s important to start somewhere–so far, so good.

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