O Juniper, Where Art Thou?

Well, then can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the smog
And I feel myself a cog in somethin' turning
And maybe it's the time of year

But then maybe it's the time of man
And I don't know who I am
But life is for learning

We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden

- Joni (of course)

I’ve been working with an eighth grader recently on some essays about Homer’s The Odyssey.  My student is a bit of a rigid thinker and sometimes it’s hard for him to think metaphorically about Odysseus’ behavior. To him, it’s an entertaining book of stories about Greek gods and people getting eaten by monsters. I’ve tried to convince him that there are also morals to be found in the book – that there’s a reason we’ve been telling this same, long story around campfires for almost 3000 years (if we’re counting from the start of the Trojan War that is). Throughout the book we see the once bold Odysseus gain humility and self-control. We see him shed the arrogance of his war victories and embrace the importance of loyalty and compassion for his men. And most importantly, we see a man, beaten down by some pretty vindictive gods learn to persevere through intelligence and strength. And for the first time in my 12 years of teaching, I’m kind of identifying with the guy.

After I got super-duper-call-the-cops sick in late 2002, I focused all my attention on getting better – and rightly so. 2003 was spent largely inpatient. 2004 was spent in outpatient programs with maybe 5 hours of tutoring sprinkled in per week. In 2005 I spent most of my days going to a variety of therapy sessions and tutored maybe 10 hours each week. For the next 2 years, I gradually cut back on the therapy and gradually increased my tutoring to 20-30 hours a week. But as difficult as that period was, I felt like I was on a course. I was in treatment and, while the tutoring was fulfilling, most of my efforts went to rebuilding my self. If you’d asked me where that course was heading I couldn’t have told you – and at times that frustrated me – but it was enough to have this big renovation “project.”

And then in 2007 we moved back east and it became evident that I needed to move into the mind I had renovated – whether it had a certificate of occupancy or not. (I still went to therapy of course, but it was limited to the standard hour a week.) My husband’s job was all-consuming and I wanted to pick up the slack. I took over the management of our personal lives and then we bought a house and I took over the management of that too. Which is not to say that my husband never helped – he’s spent hours painting and sanding and dealing with the Comcast guy. But in general, these were weekend projects for him. I’ve taken care of the rest. And I wanted to. For me they seemed like a continuation of my renovation project. I’d regained sanity, now it was time to regain adult stability. I wanted to be entrusted with these things and demonstrate just how much I could be a functioning member of society.

The same went for work. My part-time tutoring gig quickly became a full time job. And never content to just have a “job,” I dove headfirst into the education field and, slowly but surely, built a career. I recently finished my graduate courses and was accepted into the professional society in my area of specialty. The change has been subtle but noticeable: I’m going to more and more conferences, collaborating with more professionals as a peer, taking on higher-order responsibilities, and just well, sounding more like I actually know what I’m talking about.

So out in California I successfully battled the Lotus Eaters, the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis. Hell, I even went to Hades and back. But during these last 8.5 years back east, I’ve felt like I’ve been stranded on Kalypso’s island (though technically Odysseus was there for 7 years so… well, I guess that’s why HE gets the epic poem). I’ve been going through the requirements of adult stability, keeping our lives in order, building a career, and generally wondering where the hell it was I was supposed to be going in the first place. All my focus was spent on the day-to-day. As I wrote back in 2011 when my then-therapist decided I now merited an OCD diagnosis:

“That whole crazy thing tends to make nice things like husbands and jobs and car keys disappear. Maybe I should try getting - and then keeping - my shit together. But to do that, I’ll have to hold on tight. Really dig my nails in deep and keep everything under perfect lock and key. Measure it out to the nearest microgram. And worry. Don’t forget a heaping spoonful of worry. That’ll help the medicine go down.”

And sure, by keeping my focus on maintaining stability, I managed to do just that. And I’m proud of that. I’m proud I still have my marriage, of my newly minted career, of my resilient brain. Hell – I’m even proud of my sobriety. It’s all really super exhausting and a bit boring but I truly am proud of it all. The people who know me these days know me as reliable and dutiful and some have even suggested I’m risk-averse and too passive and may have a bit of a stick up my ass. To which I’d argue, hey, you should’ve seen me when I WASN’T all of those things. You’d be looking for the nearest stick to shove up my ass, believe you me.

But like my buddy Odysseus, I need to get off the island eventually. Living here is tiring and who knows, maybe partly the source of my issues with anxiety and chronic fatigue. I need to chart a course home. I need to remember who the hell I am and get back to actually living. There are so many things that I don’t say or do in my daily life. Parts of myself have lain fallow for too long: my connections with nature, creativity, music, passion, spontaneity, and well, just having opinions. Were these lost years? I doubt it. I think the narrative arc is just a complicated one – not unlike the Odyssey, come to think of it. I just need to get back in my boat and keep sailing – not to Ithaka – but to myself.