Is there anything better than adult children?
My daughter rides shotgun as we bounce along in my yellow Jeep, whose bumper advertises to the world that I am HYPRR. Five months now I’ve been recreating my life, and the results are pretty amazing. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.
I am a woman possessed with building an amazing life.
A Dr. Frankenstein wannabe in her lahBOARatorrry, I have been experimenting. What works? What doesn’t work? I’m pouring beakers of chemicals together to see what happens. I go to various Meetups, card game nights, board game nights, but at a lot of these, I sense in many of those I meet that same old desire, that same need I used to have, looking to another to find something you can only find in yourself. I decide the Meetups aren’t really helping, except for one.
I join a hiking group, and we trek through a variety of Wisconsin terrain. I’m a ladybug, little person with giant backpack. Or a Mutant Ninja Turtle, whichever you find more entertaining.
I hike alone as well, visualizing waves of positive energy radiating from me as I walk through this world, undulating as ripples in a river indicating the presence of some unknown object beneath the surface. I talk to God, even though my thoughts on that are unsure at the moment. I talk to the Universe. I talk to myself, continually readjusting my dreams, my vision of what I want, now that no one is stopping me.
I want to bring joy. I want to spread love. Not romantic love, rather the unselfish kind that builds into others without the expectation of anything at all. And I envision these waves flowing from me, changing the world around me. This visualization may seem a bit silly and woo-woo, but 1-it is a fantastic tool to change your approach to humanity and 2-you can’t prove to me that this doesn’t have some sort of effect we humans just don’t understand yet. Maybe I’m wrong, but what if I’m right? I’ve read one too many studies about visualization being a freakishly powerful tool to not believe in it. I’m going to attract what I want in my life. Like begetting like, magnet drawing steel. And I’m going to work like hell on it, too, not merely envisioning, but putting action to it, studded mountain-worthy tires fully equipped to carry this vision to its destination.
I get ideas from the mountain of information I am processing. I listen to two or three audiobooks a week. I listen while I clean. I listen while I get ready for work. I listen while I sleep. I even listen to subliminal meditations meant to reconstruct your thoughts while you sleep, though I know damn well they’re probably bullshit.
I read Can’t Hurt Me, and start writing my inspirations on little notes glued to my makeup mirror, reminders of the person I want to be each day. I read about how to create better luck, and yes, it’s actually possible. I read The Secret, still not sure about that one, though I have attracted some pretty amazing and surprising things into my life soooo… well, why not? I read about minimalism and everything by Marie Kondo, and conclude being a neat freak will absolutely never be in my DNA. Like Pigpen, I have a perpetual cloud of creative clutter in my wake, detritus from my latest idea explosion. My only hope is if for you to tell everyone to buy this book so I can hire Mary Poppins to follow me around and pick it all up.
And I start remembering who the hell I am. I find a picture of the time I shared the stage with a major artist, both of us trading vocal licks on one of the more amazing days I had leading worship. I frame it and set it where I can see it every day. I change my profile picture and background on all my social media to performance shots. And I want my body back. I print a picture of Arnold Shwarzenegger with an awesome quote on it and hang it in my bathroom. He’s still there, proudly looking buff while I pee. Everywhere I look in my house I create a source of inspiration, positive energy, and information for my brain.
I love incredible food, and begin visiting the best restaurants in Big Suburb, not on a date at all, but alone. I sit at the bar and order adventurous appetizers and wine, and meet fascinating people. My life is becoming amazing, I am a chick pecking her way out of the egg, and I’m just starting to see an amazing new world through the crack in the shell.
I keep pecking.
One of the biggest keys to being content by myself turned out to be working on me, getting in there and tinkering under the hood to see what can be improved, can we get some nitrous in there? How about some rocket fuel? Whenever I find myself alone, I now view it as the Universe’s cue it’s time to get out the hammer and chisel and start chipping away at character flaws, and shoring up the qualities I want most prominent. A deeper groove here, a more pronounced cheekbone there. The best part? NO one can take away what you build in yourself, unless you die, and then you won’t know anyway. So I tear down, and prune, and shore up, and build.
The band keeps growing, and we create a little acoustic offshoot band, so we can play more. I go out, but no longer look at men like an endless buffet. They are just people, getting through life just like the rest of us.
I plan vacations and take time off to do things I always wanted to do.
Something I always loved, in spite of being the only one out of eight kids and two parents who enjoy it, is camping. I buy a single person hammock tent and sleep under the stars. I get the whole camping kittencaboodle, including a campfire coffee pot and cooking kit, a campstove that runs on a little canister of butane, a regular tent, one of those little things that supposedly puts off fumes that make mosquitos go away, and 100% DEET spray. If you are complaining that this is toxic, you haven’t hiked where I have. I also get a really expensive miner’s light I lose almost instantly, a hiking day pack, and enough dry goods for a small army of Monicas.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m gonna have a blast finding out!
I book a waterfall chasing trip to see the tallest waterfal in my state (OVER 150 FEET TALL!! brags their Chamber of Commerce.)
So, on this radiant summer day, we are busting down the road to Korean pop, one of the few types of music my daughter and I can agree on. I haven’t heard an English word out of the radio for four hours. The sun blazes through the gaping, and gratefully intentional hole in my roof, and it all makes me really happy.
We pull into the campground, and I haul all my camping gear out, and setup commences. Tent, fire supplies, cooking gear, coolers, and a wayyy too big queen size inflatable mattress the size of a bed at the Ritz-Carlton. It’s like three feet tall. We inflate it at the ranger station and haul it back to the campsite as the other campers stare. I’d like to think with great envy.
Camp set up, I go for a run. OH my God is it beautiful. Waterfalls exist because there’s something the water falls from, so the surrounding terrain is usually quite spectacular as well. There are little falls all over the place here, and I’m fascinated. It’s a tough run, it’s super hilly, but I finally finish and clean up in one of those push-the-button-and-it-runs-for-like-three-seconds showers.
I love the all of this.
We go look at the Biggest Waterfall the next morning, and it really is amazing. You know how you lose all sense of perspective at the Grand Canyon because it’s so fucking big your brain can’t handle it? It’s that size. It’s massive. It’s tall. Totally lives up to the press release. We take pictures like the dorky tourists we are. We talk, we laugh, we listen to more K-Pop.
We pull back into the campsite at the end of the day, worn out, happy, tired.
…but in one moment, a sound chills my blood to zero.
A text message tone I haven’t heard in months, yet there it is, and it’s totally unmistakable. I can’t fucking believe it.
A dark form comes crashing through the skylight of this wonderful new life I’ve been building, falling smack in the middle of my new, no longer pristine living room. My beautiful new showplace is covered in shattered glass.
With one simple hey how are you doing? I am undone.
It’s the only person who has the power to sabotage my journey to myself.
Worship Leader Gone Wild 