Chapter 6:
Spring 2017
This snow globe world of mine
It’s all shook up
I fear it may never be the same again
I woke up to a wintry city. Through bleary eyes I could catch glimpses of falling snow from the partially drawn curtains. I buried myself deeper under the plush covers and savored the marshmallow softness of the pillows against my face. I peeked out of the covers to catch a glimpse of the alarm clock next to the king bed in my hotel room.
My hotel room.
All of a sudden my mind was fully awake as I involuntarily recalled the events of the night before, i.e., The Talk.
I lay still in bed as my brain did a thorough scan of my emotional and mental state. I knew I had done something irreversible, that I had taken the leap and there was no going back. I was free-falling now. I had violently shaken my own snow-globe world, activated my own chaos. I was at peace.
That moment of clarity I had felt the night before as I sat in front of the vanity mirror was still there. I needed to be right here, right now. My only and biggest regret was hurting him and forcing his world to fall apart too. Yet there was a big part of me that believed it would lead him to a better path somehow. Or maybe that was just what I told myself to feel better about it.
To the external world, I had probably made the craziest, most confusing decision one could possibly make at the most unfortunate time in one’s life: I had separated with the husband of seven years right as we were in the middle of getting our Green Card. No big fights. No one cheated on anyone. No one abused anyone. None of the typical reasons for ending a seven-year marriage.
I got out of bed, fired up the coffee maker, and sat by the window. My room was on the top floor of the historic Peery Hotel in Salt Lake City. That wintry morning, my monochrome view was peaceful and calming. Even the movements of the heavily precipitating snowflakes seemed gracefully languorous.
“I’m a black hole and I’m sucking the life out of you,” I had told him the night before.
He had been quiet for a minute, and then he had said, “I’ve known for a while that we were drifting apart. I know you’ve been struggling. I’ve seen you crying in your sleep, and I didn’t do anything about it because I just thought it would go away.”
My throat constricted. I had been so unfair to him all these years. “I know this will be very difficult for someone other than myself to understand, but this is why I have to go. For decades I’ve been looking externally to fill this void inside of me. I’ve looked to relationships, shopping, vacations, and creative projects. And for seven years I have subconsciously expected you to be that person to fill this hole for me. But how could you when you’ve never experienced what I had experienced? That’s not fair to you.”
“I wish I had done more. You are kind, generous, so full of life, and so talented. You make people around you better. I wish I could have done more to make you better,” he said quietly.
I breathed. “That’s the thing. My demons are mine to face. I know that now. And you’re always going to try because that’s who you are. And it will never be enough.”
In that moment, we both recognized that this was truth in its purest form: devastating and undeniable.
“I’ve been holding you back. I’ve been holding both of us back. I have to do this on my own. I’m just so sorry I’m forcing you to do so too,” I finally said.
I had a million more words and nothing left to say.
The coffee maker beeped to inform me that my subpar hotel coffee was ready for consumption, interrupting my internal reconstruction of last night’s events. I complied with the electronic signal to partake in my daily stimulant.
There was no joy to be had in this paper cup of liquid caffeination, no tasting notes for me to savor on this wintry morning. This was a purely transactional relationship between me and my hotel coffee. All parties were okay with that. No danger of feelings getting hurt. No important words left unsaid. No subconscious infliction of unfair expectations.
If only everything else in life were that simple.
Chapter 7:
Spring 2017
I hope to never be guilty
Of going through the motions
To always understand
What for and why
Before I lead or follow
To never know what "meaningless" means
To never be hollow
I hope to never be hollow
“If you look out the window to your right, you’ll see the lounge area with the ping pong and pool tables. The clubhouse is open from six a.m. to ten p.m. every day,” the property manager gushed as if I were the only person to whom she’d had the opportunity to reveal such wondrous amenities that day. “And if you’ll follow me, we’ll take this elevator right here up to the rooftop, where the hot tub and fire pits are.”
As we ascended, I looked down at the pamphlet she had handed me when I first arrived. She had encircled Aspen Unit: 630 sq. ft. 1 bed 1 bath for $1,217 a month after I told her my budget was “pretend I’m a brave, newly divorced Mormon ex-housewife who’s never had to rely on her own income until now.”
The rooftop was beautiful and artfully decorated. I could see Salt Lake City below me and the snow-capped Wasatch Range in the distance. There was a heated swimming pool in the middle of the rooftop, with three fire pits on one side and two hot tubs facing east, toward the mountains.
The price point was already at the top of my budgeted range, but the place had a hip vibe, and the location was its biggest selling point. It was in the heart of Salt Lake City, fifteen minutes from work and walking distance to bars and music venues.
I imagined myself enjoying a quiet weekend on the rooftop, reading a book, sipping stealth vodka soda in a Starbucks tumbler, or enjoying a quiet wintry night in the hot tub. This could be the place.
“So what do you think?” The property manager asked me when we ended the tour.
“I think it checks many of my boxes. It sounds like if I take the Aspen unit, it will be $1,217 a month, right?” I asked.
She nods enthusiastically. “Absolutely! If you sign with us today, you’ll get $700 off on your first month. I know, right? We never do this, but we’re doing a post-Valentines special and it won’t last long.”
She takes out a folder with a bunch of papers. “So just super quick. We do have a one-time admin fee of $399 as well as an application fee of $75. As far as recurring fees, we have a required monthly fee of $30 for clubhouse maintenance. All residents get a designated covered parking unit, which would be $25 a month. We also offer optional garage parking for $150 a month. Oh, and of course, water and sewer will be a flat fee of $100 a month. The trash valet is required, and it only costs $35 a month. ”
She lost me at “recurring fees.” I don’t know why, at thirty years old, I expected my monthly payments to be exactly as advertised. If I added the recurring fees, my facilities and internet bills, groceries, and my retail therapy budget, there was no way I could afford this place on my income as a corporate recruiter.
I smiled at her. “Okay, great. Thanks so much for the information. That seems to be stretching my budget quite a bit, but I’ll keep all of this in mind and let you know if I decide to pull the trigger.”
On to the next one, I thought as I hopped into my car.
The Next One was in an older building on the outskirts of downtown Salt Lake. It looked like it had seen its share of meth-cooking and who knew what else behind its closed doors. But it was also on the lower end of my price range. I ignored my fight-or-flight instincts and went to the main office.
This property manager was as apathetic as the other one was eager. When I came in and told her I was here for my appointment to see a rental unit, she sighed and heaved herself off of her office chair, saying nothing back. She walked heavily to the wall where three different sets of keys were hung up. She squinted as if she couldn’t remember which was the right one. She decided on the key ring in the middle.
I followed her out of the main office and into a wooden building. The steps were creaky, and the hallways were dark when we walked in. She stopped in front of Room 104. It took a few tries to find the right key.
When we walked in, it was immediately clear that this was definitely not the unit she was supposed to show people. It looked like they had barely evicted the last residents and hadn’t had time to do anything after they left.
There were mutant hairy dust bunnies all over the place. There was a discarded still-slobbery baby rattler on the living room carpet, among other barely identifiable things. It smelled like someone had decided to use vinegar in their oil diffuser just because they could.
“Well, this wasn’t the unit I was supposed to show you. We’re behind schedule on the cleaning. But you get the gist,” the property manager said. I was impressed that she was willing to utter three whole sentences.
The gist was indeed gotten, and the diffused vinegar smell clung to my hair as I fled from the building as calmly as I could manage.
Life Lesson 101: Expect not the road to independence to be a paved one. I could only laugh as I drove away from Hell to the No Apartment.
It was getting late by the time I escaped the last apartment tour. I headed back to my hotel room and fixed myself dinner for one: Spam and Eggs. I'd eat breakfast food all day every day if I could. Bacon was my defining character. Spam was a close second.
I looked out the window pensively as I ate my dinner. There were a million things I had to figure out: how to break the news about my separation to my family (especially my very devout Catholic parents who believed that marriage was sacred, and who for most of their lives had lived in a country where divorce still wasn’t legal), how to straighten out my finances as a newly single person, how to not jeopardize mine and the ex’s chances of getting a Green Card so we didn’t get deported back to the Philippines, how to face my demons, and how to be me—wholly me and not just me who was someone’s other half.
One foot in front of the other, girl. First things first: shelter. Thank goodness for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
It took a few more tours over the next two days, but I finally found The One. It was a 350 sq. ft. studio apartment downtown. Fifteen minutes from work, walking distance to the City Creek Mall, Whole Foods, a park, and different bars and restaurants downtown.
The studio was on the seventh floor, and the building had bragging rights to having the oldest functioning elevator in Salt Lake City (the “oldest” part was accurate; the “functioning” part was generous).
The bathroom had retained its original vintage 1906 bathroom tiles, the kitchen had a white backsplash and white cupboards, and the living space had original hardwood floors and a Murphy bed. I don’t need to get a bed? Sold.
Decorating my new place and making it my own was the best part. It took two trips to Bed, Bath, & Beyond, two to the HomeGoods store, three sessions of Tetris-ing furniture into my little 2017 Hyundai Elantra, and exactly seven trips up seven flights of stairs to move everything to my new studio.
By the end of the week, I was all settled in. New Life Inventory: two sets of spoons, forks, and knives; two Corel plates; two red-and-white coffee mugs; one frying pan, one little pot; one cutting knife and one red plastic cutting board; two red kitchen towels; one Keurig; two wine glasses; one love seat; one chair; one folding tray; seven of my favorite books on the floor; one set of string lights; one guitar; and one keyboard.
I’m home.
Chapter 8:
Summer 2017
I choose to soar.
I choose to soar higher
than I've ever dared before.
Even if it's terrifying.
Even if it means
crashing and burning.
Even then.
I choose to soar.
“Haaaappy birthday to yoou,” my girlfriends chorused wholeheartedly amid the clinking of silverware on china, punctuated by a distant crash as a nervous server lost control of the eighteen-inch tray of food and drinks he was trying his best to balance on one hand.
The May sun was streaming through the windows. I was surrounded by my best girlfriends, there was an abundance of bacon and eggs and mimosas on the brunch table, and I was vibrating with the kind of ease that one gets from being around one's forever friends.
It was two days before my thirty-first birthday, three months after The Talk. I was taking myself on a solo road trip to Venice Beach for a few days, and my girlfriends were sending me off with laughter and silly selfies over a pre-birthday brunch. It was the right and only thing to do.
“How are you feeling today, love?” Allie asked. She had beautiful bronze skin, gloriously full dark brows and lashes, big brown eyes, and a dimple on her right cheek that perpetually preceded the sarcastic humor that inevitably followed.
“I feel like 2002 Britney, standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon as the camera circles around me, my hair gently fluttering in the breeze, my flat midriff bared while I emotionally inform the world that I’m not a girl, not yet a woman,” I responded.
“All you need is time, a moment that is yours while you’re in between,” my best friend, MJ, supplied. Her slim frame slipped into the chair next to me as she gave me a hug. Her heart-shaped face framed her delicate features perfectly. She looked like a Free People model in her flowy boho dress and dark loose locks.
“Exactly,” I beamed.
“I’m so proud of you, boo.” Aarya’s almond-shaped eyes glistened with unshed tears as she reached for my hand across the table. She had gone through a divorce herself just two years before, and she was one of the first people I had confided in about my separation. Aarya was as fiercely funny as she was fiercely loyal to her friends. With her stylish bob, pale pink cashmere sweater, and perfectly peach Charlotte Tilbury lips, she was a picture of warm, approachable elegance.
“We’re here for you no matter what,” Jake declared. Jake was Allie’s best friend, petite and so beautiful she could be a movie star, like an Asian Scarlet Johansson.
A rush of gratitude flowed through me as I looked at my girlfriends, my constants. I silently thanked the universe for bringing these amazing women into my life. This was exactly the fuel I needed for my solo soul adventure.
After a few more abundant rounds of hugs, laughter, and opening of presents, I shared my location with them on Google Maps and said my good-byes.
I connected my phone to my car, plugged in directions to the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, and put on “A Brand New Life” by Panama Wedding.
I smiled and hit the road. I had five full days to be with no one but myself. On any other trip, I would have been so focused on creating a good experience for my travel companions, I would have deprioritized my own needs. This time, I had no one but myself to focus on taking care of.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had an opportunity to do that. Before I was married maybe? Nah, I was in my twenties then and too afraid to be alone. Too afraid to be with myself, a stranger I wasn’t sure I would like.
Who am I now? I thought as I entered Interstate 15. Impulsive. Independent. Courageous. Stubborn. Unencumbered by society’s expectations of a thirty-year-old married-but-separated woman.
“How are you not even pregnant yet? You’ve been married for seven years,” society would ask, dumbfounded.
Because I’m broken, and I’m afraid I’m not whole enough to instill important core values into another human being so that they may create a positive impact on the world around them.
Because this world is full of pedophiles and sexual predators, and I’m afraid I’ll be too triggered to help my own child if they ever have to go through anything remotely close to what I went through.
Because I don’t want to get pregnant for the sake of getting pregnant. The list goes on.
My own parents knew not to pressure me about grandchildren. Anytime I would get the “So, you pregnant yet?” question from acquaintances, I would tell myself these were well-meaning strangers who didn’t know anything about my life. They were just looking for some common ground to connect on, I supposed. But truly, I could think of a multitude of other topics that didn’t trigger heartbreak and intrinsic sadness.
Pro-tip for anyone who blanks on conversation starters: Try something of the safer variety such as (a) where they got their shoes, (b) what shows they’ve been watching lately, or even (c) if they believed in the Oxford comma. All three topics have a low risk of triggering sadness, but no guarantees that it won’t trigger other side effects, such as relationship fallout due to the comma debate.
Las Vegas - 257 Miles, the sign read. Tim Myers’ “September: Wonderful Life” came on, and I turned the volume up even louder. It was dark by the time I arrived at the Flamingo Hotel. Immediately my phone started buzzing.
Buzz. "You made it!" MJ texted as soon as I parked.
Buzz. "So glad you made it safe, sweetheart. Love you!" That was Allie.
Buzz. "Girls, sharing my location too. I’m going to Orem. Please pray for my safety," Aarya quipped.
I laughed out loud. Aarya lived in American Fork, fifteen minutes from Orem.
The girls had been watching my location, making sure I got to my first destination safely. I felt my heart bloom. The jagged soul hole was filling up. Marginally, but I was on the right track.
—
I got up bright and early the next day, getting ready to make the second leg of the trip to Venice Beach. Even after seven years of married life, it didn't take long for me to get used to waking up on my own, and my first instinct was to look out the hotel window and find beauty in the sunrise views. It didn't disappoint.
I fired up the hotel coffee maker and took my time choosing my travel outfit for the day: I went with a dark green spaghetti-strap V-neck top from Urban Outfitters and my favorite ripped jeans. It was still a little chilly, so I pulled out my motorcycle jacket and kept it readily available.
It was about a four-hour drive to Venice Beach from Las Vegas. I had booked a room at a beachfront Airbnb, and I was going to spend two days at the beach. I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate my birthday.
When I finally made it to Venice beach and checked in to my Airbnb, the front-desk guy saw that it was going to be my birthday the next day when I showed him my driver’s license. Without being prompted, he took it upon himself to move me to the top floor with no extra charge.
My upgraded suite came with a fully stocked kitchen, a sunroof, large wide windows, and a panoramic view of the sparkling blue ocean. I felt another burst of happy gratitude. I set down my guitar and carry-on bag and savored the view. For the rest of the evening, I decided to stay in and enjoy a homemade dinner from my fully stocked kitchen unit.
I had a simple itinerary for my birthday: Beach. Bob Marley. Bacon. The triple birthday Bs. I woke up the next day to breathtaking panoramic beach views, put on my one-shoulder maroon beach dress, and walked along the boardwalk in search of birthday brunch.
It was a simple, easy, and meaningful birthday. The local brunch place I chose gave me my meal on the house, and I treated myself to a full day of reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World while I listened to Bob Marley at the beach. As extroverted as I was, I discovered that I genuinely valued my personal time, and being alone was nowhere near as awkward as I thought it would be. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I finished my book right as the sun was setting, and there was nothing more I could ask for. I had flipped my entire world upside down, and there was a long road of unknowns ahead of me. But at that moment, I was soaring.
I might not even be in America by this time next year. I could be denied my Green Card and be deported back to the Philippines. But right then, as I watched the orange sun melt into pastel pinks and purples, it was just me and the ocean, and nothing else mattered.
I met several more kind-hearted strangers on that trip. But more importantly, I met me. Brave, badass, comfortable-with-myself me.
I kinda like me, I thought as I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror on the drive back to Utah.
Someday, I’ll love me.
Chapter 9:
Summer 2017
I took a leap and shattered
my snow-globe world.
some days I just want
the snow dust to settle.
some days, like this one,
I accidentally find symmetry
amid the rubble,
and I'm grateful I was brave enough
to break away from it all.
“I think, maybe, I should try talking to someone,” I said slowly. MJ and I were at Goblin Valley in Southern Utah, setting up our cameras and getting ready to take photos of the Milky Way.
Goblin Valley was a certified dark sky area, and MJ and I had grand plans to test out our brand-new Rokinon 14mm lens that we each bought ourselves specifically for this trip.
The sun was setting, and the sky had turned indigo. We had chosen to hang out at a spot nestled between a cluster of goblin-looking rock formations called hoodoos, waiting for the stars and the Milky Way to make their appearance.
“Have you done that before?” MJ asked.
“No, never. There’s an abundance of literature on the internet about complex PTSD, and I’ve been perfectly okay psychoanalyzing myself with Google at my disposal. But I don’t know, maybe it’s time to talk to a professional,” I responded.
MJ nodded and squeezed my hand. “If you feel ready to try it, then I’m here for you.”
I smiled gratefully at her. I brought my Canon up to my face until the viewfinder lined up against my left eye. I aimed it at MJ and released the shutter. The hoodoos looked ethereal behind her as they caught the last rays of the sun, the clouds looking bruised and purple above them.
MJ and I sat on our camping chairs for several moments, breathing in the quiet and letting the darkness creep over us, knowing it would bring with it stunning views of the galaxy. One by one, the stars glittered into view until they overcrowded the inky black sky. It was breathtaking.
“So what happened between you two?” MJ finally broke the silence. She had been my biggest supporter on my journey to self-discovery, but she had never pushed for details, knowing I would speak about it only when I was ready.
I thought about it for a moment, trying to distill into one coherent response all the years of me asking myself the same question.
“When people ask me why my marriage ended, they always seem to expect this one big reason, a singularity that caused our paths to break apart,” I said. “But I struggle to give them that. Relationships are nonlinear. People are complex, and when they share themselves with another person, the complexity multiplies exponentially. I wish I could choose one reason to offer to anyone who asks, but it’s more complicated than that.”
That fateful night when he and I talked, he said he’d known that we had been drifting apart for a while. We got along so well, our friends thought we were the perfect couple. And for a while, it was true. We disagreed on certain things, but we didn’t really have big fights. We both had mellow personalities, and we truly were best of friends.
“I can’t really pinpoint a specific moment when the threads started coming apart,” I recalled. “They might have already started doing so even before we got married. Who knows? I just know that slowly, over time, I started imploding. I would be my normal, cheerful self at work and whenever we had friends around, but by the time it came down to just the two of us, I couldn’t sustain that energy for him.”
Hazy memories flashed back at me as I reflected on my seven-year marriage. I couldn’t cook, I couldn’t clean the house, I couldn’t keep the sink clear. I couldn’t do the things that made him happy, and he started filling all of those gaps for both of us. I kept taking and taking; he kept giving and giving. I felt like I was sleepwalking through life, and I was sucking him into no-man’s land with me.
“I don't know,” I said out loud after a quiet pause. “If I had to point a finger at something, it’s that I was too absorbed in my own darkness, I failed to be a good partner to him. And the worst part is, he kept trying to be a good enough partner for both of us, and I let him. I started unconsciously hoping it would be enough somehow, that he could fill the gaps for me, that he could be that person to fill the void until eventually, that hope became an unfair expectation that he couldn’t meet.”
It was stream-of-consciousness talking now. MJ nodded in understanding. I wrapped my camping blanket around me tighter and took a deep breath.
“When my grandma passed away,” I continued, “the emptiness I was feeling got magnified. I realized that life was finite. What was I doing with mine? I didn’t want to be sleepwalking anymore. It made me realize that everything he was doing wouldn’t ever be enough because it wasn’t on him. I had work to do on my own. A whole lot of work.”
The night of The Talk, when I sat in the bedroom in the dark with nothing but my thoughts while he watched TV in the living room, I caught a glimpse of the person I had become. I had been hiding like a wounded animal for a long time. I was hiding in my safe harbor when all I wanted was to be healed.
I wanted to stop living a monochrome life. I wanted color. I wanted passion. I wanted to be content. I wanted to stop holding my breath. I wanted life to take my breath away.
“I’ve never said this out loud until now, but for a long time, I felt like all I’ve written are temporary drafts with no clue as to what story I’m telling. I keep telling myself there’s got to be more to life than this. Maybe I’ve been waiting for something to make me feel whole, and I finally realized that only I could do that. And I needed to leave my safe harbor to start doing the work to make myself whole again.”
I exhaled and looked up at the stars. The Milky Way was directly above us now, arching over the hoodoos like a celestial rainbow. The luminous belt stretched across the dark sky, undeniable amid the chaotic sea of billions of stars. The night sky was as satisfyingly incoherent as my thoughts.
“I hate that I hurt him. I married my best friend,” I finally breathed out, “and I could no longer bear making him feel like he wasn’t enough. Maybe it’s as simple as that.”
I blinked tears from my eyes and looked at MJ. She came over and gave me a comforting hug.
“I understand. Let’s take some badass photos,” she finally grinned.
I grinned back. Regardless of whatever life crisis I was dealing with at different points in my life, my love for photography was a constant and a core part of my identity. Nothing gave me fulfillment like taking night photos under the big open sky in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.
There was something special about exposing myself to the elements so I could capture the magnificence of the stars while the rest of the world carried on with their lives under fluorescent lights and temperature-controlled concrete boxes.
No matter what I was going to discover about myself as I went on this journey, there were parts of me that I knew would remain constant: I was a star catcher, a sunset chaser.
We got out of our camping chairs and scoped out the perfect foreground for our Milky Way photos. With the magnificent starscape directly above us, the red rocks resonated with echoes of laughter and the occasional click of DSLR cameras as MJ and I turned the ethereal landscape into our personal playground.
Goblin Valley was already incredibly unique in broad daylight. It was even more surreal at night. The darkness was thick and palpable, and it was easy to get lost amid the ghostly silhouettes. But I was completely free of fear and anxiety that night.
Amid the unearthly shadows and echoes, I found the courage to take the step I had stubbornly refused to take for far too long: it was time to talk to someone about my demons.
Chapter 10:
Summer 2017
I know the eternal internal battle
Beneath that impeccable brittle armor.
I see the visible invincibility.
I feel the invisible vulnerability.
I know it now. I've known it always.
It's the sound of silent battle scars refusing to fade
Hello, Kathi. Nice to meet you. I’m Polly. How can I help you today?
I stared at the screen, trying to decide whether or not I cared if this were a human being or a robot on the other end.
It was Saturday morning, and I was at my usual corner table at my favorite coffee shop, surrounded by the buzz and chatter but secluded enough to discourage unwanted attention.
I sipped on my almond milk latte, giving myself a mental scan. My pulse was beating slightly faster than normal, and my breathing was on edge, ready to break away at the slightest sign of a threat. But I was in control. So far.
I was trying out the online therapy service offered by the Employee Assistance Program through my work. After years of stubbornly refusing to see a therapist (“I’d rather exhaust all the coping mechanisms prescribed by Google than let a stranger force me to uncover my suppressed memories, thank you very much,” I used to declare), I decided it was time to give it a try. After researching my company’s EAP services, I discovered that there was a chat service available. That seemed like a safer first step than talking to a stranger face-to-face.
I have bad nightmares as a result of childhood trauma. I thought maybe I should talk to someone, I typed back.
The cursor blinked as human-or-robot Polly on the other end processed my input.
I’m very sorry to hear that, Kathi. This must be difficult for you. I can help. I’d like to give you a call at your convenience to schedule a time for us to meet, Polly wrote.
Guess she was human.
My breathing accelerated. I forced myself to take a sip of water. I locked my computer, stood up, and went to the bathroom. Escaping already? my mirror self asked.
I took a deep breath, counted to five, and released it. I could do this. When I set my mind on something, I went after it with everything I had. This shouldn’t be different. I had decided I was going to do this. There was no half-assing this.
You will do this. And you will do this with an open mind. You pride yourself in going all-in once you’ve made a decision. Be open, be willing to do the work, I told myself sternly.
I washed my hands, put on a fresh coat of lipstick, and made my way back to my table. I unlocked my screen and took a deep breath.
My fingers felt heavy with determination as I typed back my response: Thank you, Polly. Yeah, you can give me a call this afternoon at three, and we’ll set up a time to meet.
Great, talk to you then. I’ll call the number you listed on file. Let me know if there is a different number I should use. I look forward to our conversation, Kathi!
The chat closed and a prompt appeared on the screen: Your session has ended. Would you like to save a copy of this conversation?
I clicked the No button. I did another mental scan. Low-grade anxiety was hovering, but I felt fine for the most part. I was all in. I closed my eyes and ran my hand through my hair, rubbing the back of my head and my neck for a brief moment.
“You doing okay there, KitKat?”
I looked up, and my face broke into a wide grin.
“Asher!”
I shot out of my chair. Asher enveloped me in a one-arm hug, his other arm balancing a steaming cup of coffee.
“What’s happening, girl? You looked really serious there for a moment.”
Asher’s dark brown eyes searched my face. His long wild dark curls were loose today, and he was wearing his usual black shirt and dark-wash jeans. Tattoos crawled around both of his arms. He had an almost-perpetual half smile that never failed to cheer me up, and this time was no exception.
I laughed. “Oh, just sorting through the usual morning-coffee conversations with myself, like why am I here and what am I doing with my life. You know, just your garden-variety existential crisis and such. But enough about me. How about this weather, huh?”
Asher’s infectious laugh boomed across the coffee shop. I smiled. Asher was a bartender at one of my favorite bars. Three months ago, we had struck up a conversation about our top five favorite bands of all time while I was waiting for friends to arrive, and we hit it off immediately.
“Oh yeah, great weather today. Deceptively sunny with subtle undertones of biting cold wind. Quite the paradox. Reminds me a lot of my soul,” he played along.
“Ain’t that the truth. You’re like a curious hybrid of sunny and dark, like if Voldemort and Mary Poppins had a love child who was raised by Mr. Rogers.”
“You get me, Kat. You get me.” He laughed again. “So I was just grabbing a cup of joe before I headed over to band practice. What are you up to today?”
“Nothing much really. I was going to head over to Barnes&Noble after this, and then just chill at home with the new books, plural,” I said.
“Oh damn. Well, I definitely can’t compete with inanimate objects, plural, that have the magical ability to transport you to a different world. But hey, if you have some free time today, come hang out at the studio. We’re working on this new song, and I want to get your ears on it. I’ll be there all afternoon.”
“That’s neat, Ash. I’d love to hear it sometime. I’ll see if I can squeeze that in between the magical adventures of my mind, but don’t count on it.” I told him with a smile.
Asher nodded, and I knew he understood and didn't take offense. I gave him a squeeze and packed up my stuff to leave.
Light bantering with good friends was soothing to my soul. The thought of Polly the Not-Robot Therapist giving me a call that afternoon was still hovering at the back of my mind, a low-grade nagging reminder of the terrifying step I had decided to take. But I was grateful for the breaks in the clouds that brought sunshine to my eternal stormcloud of thoughts.
A small part of me knew I wouldn’t be in any mood to socialize that afternoon after the dreaded call, that I would much rather curl up with a good book and give myself time to process my thoughts alone rather than escape again.
Asher was good company to have. He was a genuinely good person, and I knew neither of us would let our dynamic turn into anything more than friendship. This journey I was on was a solo trip, and Asher was intuitive enough to understand that.
It was liberating, really, to not constantly seek love and romance. For a long time, that seemed to be my only programming: to find true love, to find a man who took my breath away so we could live happily ever after. It seemed to be what most girls wanted. To get married to the love of their life, have kids and a dog named Bear, and live in a house with white picket fences.
Why weren’t women ever programmed to discover true self-love first? To discover who their identity was outside of “daughter,” “wife,” or “girlfriend”?
This was what my journey was all about. This was why I was willing to risk destroying the life I had built in America despite everyone’s confusion about my decision to separate from my husband in the middle of getting our Green Card: I had to learn to love myself.
I had to learn to love my whole self, all the parts of me that made me, me. Including the little girl that had “let” herself be abused without saying a word for years. Including the girl who grew up perfecting her cheerful façade while knowing deep down she was feeling damaged and ashamed of who she was. Including the woman who could go from making everyone in the room laugh one moment to running to the closest bathroom stall the next moment to hide her panic attacks from the world. Including the woman who felt unworthy of being loved unconditionally.
I’d gotten so good at hiding my real self from the world, at burying the parts of me I was ashamed of so deeply, that I had lost sight of who I was.
The next time I got into a relationship, I was determined not to lose myself. Finding myself seemed to be the logical prerequisite.
Do the work. The three words emerged loud and clear from my stormy thoughts. I took another deep breath as I left the coffee shop.
I could do this. I was all in.
Chapter 11:
Summer 2017
I refuse to regress
To that outgrown brittleness
That perilous breakable-ness
But if this jaded cynicism
This deliberate, constant decision
Against emotion
Is to be my progress,
Then why even bother at all?
What is there beyond
What is currently perceptible?
What else is there
That's worth waiting for?
Am I really still to believe
That there is more to it than this?
When everywhere I look,
I see that this, all this, is it.
All of this is it.
I imagined Polly to have perfect shiny shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a silk top and slacks. She would wear stylish but sensible heels, a simple wedding band as her only accessory. She would sit on her therapist chair and listen quietly as I told her my life story from the leather chaise lounge across the room from her.
I couldn’t be more wrong. Polly looked like Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love, except with wilder hair and bad teeth. She was wearing a long, flowy kimono, and she had beads in her hair. Her two chihuahuas were yipping excitedly around her feet as she opened the door to let me in. I wondered if she would let the dogs hang out with us for our session. I’d be cool with it.
I actually felt instant relief when I saw Polly. I knew I would be significantly more comfortable talking to imperfect-Julia-Roberts Polly than polished silk-top-and-slacks Polly. This might just work out okay.
Polly led me into her office on the second floor and shooed her chihuahuas down to the basement. Her office had a dark Victorian feel to it. At the end of the room was a large window covered by heavy velvet drapes, just a sliver of sunlight streaming through the small gap where the drapes failed to meet.
In front of the window was a large heavy desk, its massive surface covered by stacks of papers and folders. There was a green velvet chair to the left, and a deep red velvet settee to the right. There were books and papers strewn all over the room as if the chaos were meant to make her office feel more accessible, more lived in.
Polly turned a desk lamp on and took the velvet chair on the left. She motioned for me to make myself comfortable on the settee.
“How are you doing, Kathi?” she asked when we both got settled in.
On the drive to Polly’s office, I had promised myself to be as open and honest as possible. Otherwise, I would only be prolonging the process with Polly, and that wasn’t helpful to anyone, especially not me.
“On a scale of one to five, five being great, I’d say I’m a two right now. Life is a little scary at the moment,” I said.
“Tell me more,” Polly prompted.
“Well, I recently left my marriage of seven years even though we are currently in the process of getting our Green Card. I’m not sure how the Green Card thing will work out, and that’s one big scary part about the whole thing. My parents are super Catholic and don’t believe in divorce, and I don’t know how to break the news to them. That’s a little scary. And this is the first time I’ve ever talked to a therapist about my childhood trauma, and although I’m determined to be as open to this as possible, I’m terrified of what I might have to face,” I told her.
So far, I felt calm and in control. Mentally preparing myself to be as open as possible might just turn out to be a good strategy. Polly was scribbling notes on a yellow pad as I talked.
“When you and I spoke on the phone, it sounded like you wanted to resolve your childhood trauma because you were having bad nightmares. How long have you been having these nightmares?” Polly asked.
“Umm . . . since I was eleven? So over twenty years, I guess. I have recurring dreams about two shadowy men chasing me. It used to happen every night when I was younger. Back then it was intense. I would feel it physically, like I had spiders crawling up my legs, and inevitably the sleep paralysis and recurring nightmares would follow. When I entered my twenties, the creepy crawlies stopped, and the recurring nightmares were more sporadic. But they still happen. About six months ago, it got super intense and regular again, and that’s when I decided I had to do something.”
Polly nodded thoughtfully, scribbling furiously on the yellow pad. “What happened six months ago to make the dreams come back?”
“I’m not sure. My grandma passed away, but she didn’t have anything to do with my trauma.”
“Let’s talk about your trauma.”
Instantly my body tensed. It was a knee-jerk reaction. I fought to stay in control of my breathing. All in. Do the work.
“What do you want to know?” I stalled.
“What do you feel comfortable sharing?” she lobbed back gently.
I sucked in a tenuous breath. “I . . . It happened when I was ten, I think. It went on for about a year. Maybe more. He would visit every Saturday. He was my physical therapist. My parents didn’t find out until I was in college.”
Okay, that wasn’t so bad. I was still in control of my breathing even though my hands had grown icy and my body was begging me to leave the room.
Polly nodded reassuringly. She kept writing on her notepad.
We have a notetaker, folks, my brain quipped. Involuntary humor. It was my favorite coping mechanism.
I stayed silent, my icy hands clenched against my legs, waiting to see what Polly would do next.
When she ran out of notes to document, she looked up at the clock. It was 10:45 AM.
“Thank you for being willing to share that, Kathi. How are you feeling?” Polly asked.
I ran a scan. “I feel about 65% in control. My hands are cold, and my flight instincts are strong right now, like my body wants to not be here anymore.” My voice cracked.
“That’s good. You seem very in tune with your mind and your emotions. That’s a very good thing. You may already be well aware of this: as we talk more about your trauma, you will be forced to reconstruct the event in your mind. Your subconscious has no concept of time, so your body will be fooled into thinking that you are experiencing that event again. This is why you are feeling the onset of a panic attack right now.”
Her voice sounded far away, but she was making a lot of sense. I forced myself to focus on her words instead of my increasingly erratic breathing.
“Take a couple of deep breaths for me,” Polly instructed.
I complied until my pulse slowed. Polly looked at the clock again. 10:50 AM.
“Our time is up, but I’d like for us to meet again. Same time next Saturday. Your work offers six free sessions with me. Depending on how our conversations go, we can both decide together if we need to use all six, or if we need to extend it further than that,” Polly said.
It was a strange juxtaposition for us to end our conversation with business talk after I had just completely bared my soul to Imperfect Julia Roberts. Somehow it created a comfortable distance between us, like she was an impartial observer to whom I could tell my deepest, darkest secrets.
I was relieved to leave her dark Victorian office. The shadows had felt too thick, like my nightmare had started coming to life, as ridiculous as that sounded.
I stepped out into the sunlight and reminded myself that I was here, out in the real world and not in the ugly prison of my subconscious mind. I got into my car, turned the ignition, and drove away.
The onslaught of tears came suddenly. I could barely see the road in front of me. I slowed to a stop at a curb in front of someone’s home.
It was 11:11 AM on a May Saturday. The sun was shining and the sky was blue, promising that summer was just around the corner. Inside my 2017 Hyundai Elantra, there was a little ten-year-old girl in the driver’s seat, shattering to pieces as the invisible gray snowstorm thrashed violently around her.
When I finally made it to my apartment, I climbed up seven flights of stairs, unlocked the door, crawled into bed, and buried myself under the covers. It was a quarter past noon. Other than two trips to the bathroom, I didn’t leave my bed until Tuesday morning, two days and a half later.
Chapter 12:
Fall 2017
This fairy tale begins
With a girl who rode off into the moonrise
Once upon a time
In a land far, far away.
The sun was setting to my left as I drove 90 miles per hour on Highway 66, the radio on full blast as MJ pointed her GoPro at me, capturing my easy smile on video as I sang along to Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale.”
We had been driving for nine hours that day already, and we were on the last leg of our drive to the Havasupai Indian Reservation, where we planned to spend the night in our car and start our ten-mile hike to Havasu Falls very early the next morning.
With its legendary turquoise waters, Havasu Falls was a popular permit-only backpacking destination that required serious sweat equity, i.e., hours of carrying your food, water, and shelter on your back in the middle of a very dry Arizona desert, in order to experience it.
I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the holiday weekend than going off-grid on a four-day backpacking trip in the heart of the Grand Canyon with my best friend.
It was mid-October in the Year of Our Great Self-Discovery. It took three sessions of Polly and the Chihuahuas trying to pry open the Pandora’s box of my ugly subconscious mind before it fully consumed me in a spiral of regression.
Maybe I had been too determined to be all in, that I ended up facing my demons way before I was ready. Or maybe my brain was just right this whole time to erase key parts of the most formative years of my life from my memories. Maybe that part of my life was meant to be locked and buried, never to be visited, remembered, thought about, or talked about. Ever.
Whatever it was, it resulted in me doing reckless things in an attempt to expediently end my earthly existence. There were episodes of incoherent sobbing and my best friend ditching work to take me to KFC so she could talk me off the ledge with a bucket of fried chicken.
There were scoping excursions for storage units where one might theoretically succumb peacefully to carbon monoxide poisoning. There were quiet nights of sitting in the car for hours, fantasizing about driving through red lights just in time for a big rig to T-bone me into the afterlife.
The realization that I was daydreaming about endangering other people’s lives just because I was hurting was a sobering one, and it was through that temporary break in the storm clouds that I made the decision to adopt a dog from the shelter. I believe the hypothesis was that I would be forced to keep myself alive if something else’s survival was depending on mine.
Her name was Lulu. She was a Maltese/Lhasa Apso mix, and I adopted her from the shelter when she was thirteen. Lulu, together with my best friend, saved my life that year.
MJ was the one who introduced me to her outdoor meetup group in Utah, took me on hiking and backpacking trips, and brought out my inner Cheryl Strayed. Being away from the city and surrounded by the stillness of nature was surprisingly more healing than anything I had tried up until that point.
“In half a mile, turn left on Indian Road 18,” my GPS announced. We were about an hour away from the Havasupai trailhead. The last sixty miles of driving before our epic backpacking trip to Havasu Falls. There were no other cars for miles, no more gas stations, and there was zero cell service. The sun had completely set, turning the horizon into my favorite shade of purple.
As we drove, I took a deep breath, savoring the open road and dusky sky until directly in front of us, the giant golden moon started to rise. MJ and I saw it at almost the same instant. I knew because we both audibly gasped at the sight of it.
I had never seen the moon that big and so centered on the horizon before, it took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at. The full moon formed a golden semicircle that got bigger and bigger as we got closer, as if we were approaching the mouth of some magical golden tunnel.
“We have to stop for a photo,” MJ marveled. I pulled over to the side of the road, and we both got out of the car.
The night air was cool, and even though the sky had turned black, the moon was so bright it lit up the entire stretch of road we were on. After snapping a couple of photos, we both stood in the middle of the road, lingering, witnessing the perfect moonrise with hushed reverence.
Most of the time, I viewed my world in a series of still frames, like the frames of a motion picture. That night, my brain made this almost audible click, as if some incorporeal but absolute part of me decided that this still frame of me and my best friend standing in the middle of nowhere Arizona, awash with golden moonlight, was worth saving and searing into my soul memory.
The entire trip was filled with moments like that: MJ and I lounging under the shade of a juniper tree five miles into the hike after eating our dehydrated backpacking meal for lunch. Catching our first glimpse of Havasu Falls just as our shoulders and legs were ready to give up. Falling asleep in our sleeping bags to the crystalline sound of waterfalls. Hiking in the dark to see the Big Dipper perfectly nestled between the silhouette of two mountains.
Jumping off a tire swing into turquoise waters. Climbing down the sketchy steps of Mooney Falls to have lunch on a picnic table in the middle of the river while tourists bared their butts in honor of the waterfall's baptismal name.
Swimming through the wall of vertical water to discover hidden caves at its base. Packing up our tent at two in the morning and hiking the first leg of the trip back to Havasu Village with nothing but the full moon lighting our path. Seeing a rare desert fox during aforementioned moonlit hike.
Havasupai was grueling, magical, and soul-nourishing. When I emerged from the heart of the Grand Canyon with my best friend four days later, the cobwebs of depression and suicidal thoughts had cleared.
For the first time in a long time, I felt pain free.
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