Hindsight in Twenty-Twenty: Learning To Stay

Only seven days into 2021, and we’re met with a harsh reality in the United States: new year, same circus. If 2020 was about destruction, as in destroying our dichotomies and binaries, our outdated systems, our innate white supremacy, our “normal,” etc., then we can only hope that 2021 is about rebuilding. 

 Perhaps, after seeing what happened in DC this week, it doesn’t seem so. But I want to press that events like this—and especially, the discourse surrounding them—prove we’re no longer asleep to a nation divided and wrought with fear. How could we be? It’s displayed, so violently, on the screens we’re stuck to. The audacity of those crawling into the capitol was frightening—but fueled by entitlement. And their privilege proved itself. Instead of bullets and tear gas, arrests and violence, like we saw this summer during BLM protests, the police met these “protestors” with open gates and arms. The way it was handled was appalling, but unfortunately not surprising.  

We are in desperate need of change—colossal, ground-breaking change that probably won’t quite feel like a rebuilding, at first anyway. And yet, I feel hope. Call it naïve or insensitive, but what I’ve found is that awareness, waking up to Truth, is always the first step to change. And I can only speak from personal experience, but rock bottom is often where I have to visit before I can truly alchemize my experience. What happened is heart-wrenching and terrifying—and how can we use our reality as fuel to create lasting transformation?

I believe in the necessity for what’s not working to crumble and burn itself out entirely, so that we may rise, a phoenix from its ashes. I believe that the grander plan, that God’s will, is always moving in the direction of the Highest Good for everyone. I believe in hope as the most effective conviction of all. 

And I believe in these things even more so, after this past year, than ever. 

“How to learn to stay, is basically your question. How to learn to see. How to be gentle. How to find space. How to find warmth. How to find things that will allow you to stay when it's really jumpy. How long should I stay. It's a good question. And it's different every time. But you keep coming back and you keep doing it over and over and over and you train in learning to stay; and this is a good use of the rest of your life. Indeed, it is a good, excellent, joyful use of the rest of your life. Instead of getting better and better at avoiding, learn to accept the present moment as if you had invited it, and work with it instead of against it, and making it your ally rather than your enemy.” —Pema Chodron, Getting Unstuck

I had a long, drawn out blog post about my personal struggles of 2020: the missed opportunities, the loss, the grief. Of course, it was not all bad. There were moments of ecstatic joy and freedom amidst the uncertainty of it all. There were three road trips! Twenty-three states! But besides my bouts of traveling, 2020 can best be summed up for me as learning to stay. 

A specific morning comes to mind. It was peak quarantine, maybe week 10, who knows. A time between times, where we both forgot what life had been like and longed for it, a far-off dream. I was quarantined with Vito and the kids, all of us in a townhome without much extra space and none of the typical barriers of sleepovers with friends, playdates, or working from coffee shops. This particular morning, I remember feeling stuffed inside our house like olives in an air-tight jar, remember praying that someone throw the glass against the kitchen floor, break us free. 

My partner’s son was downstairs feeling the same, it seemed, judging by the screams finding their way up towards me. I stood in the threshold of our bedroom and listened, caught only ‘screen time’ and ‘hate you’ and ‘you don’t care about me.’They were common phrases those days, as we did, in fact, become those parents who limited screen time during lockdown, mostly because of my incessant worry about the ways I saw it affecting Milo’s mental health and well-being. (No regrets.) However, the battle was often not mine to fight—just to gripe to Vito about.  

That morning, I stood there frozen, the screams filling each corner of the house. I really wanted to walk down the stairs and help, or at the least, make sure they were okay—both Vito and Milo. I thought, judging from the sobs and crashes, maybe they’d lost it this time. But instead, I found myself walking into Vito and I’s closet, closing the door behind me, and crumbling to the floor. Surrounded by black-and-white stripped sweaters and bright-colored scarfs, I threw a tantrum, too, in the only sliver of privacy I could find. Forehead to the ground in complete defeat. 

It felt like I cried for days (which kind of became typical around this time, tbh). I cried for my need for relief, for my worry about Milo, and for my resentments for his outbursts.  I cried over the guilt and shame in feeling that way, for the lack of physical space, for the worry that wouldn’t leave me. I longed for the luxuries of living alone. I thought, more than once, about renting my own apartment for a while, just a part-time moving out… 

And eventually, I stood on my feet, wiped the tears from my eyes, and opened the closet door. I stepped out of the self-pity and into the light coming through our bedroom window. Down the stairs and into the living room, where I found Milo and Vito wrapped in a blanket on the couch reading a book, a record spinning on the turntable in the corner. Content and comfortable. Perfectly safe despite my worry. I laid down beside them and listened to Holes, curled into the couch. Content and comfortable, too. 

I was never going to leave and get my own place. It was a story my mind held onto to create an illusion of an escape route, a hatch out the back. It was a psychological relief from my discomfort. And yet, I knew that in order to experience any real reprieve, I had to make the decision to let go of ‘potential plan B.’ To make the decision to stay. 

And please believe, I did not decide once and find perfect peace amidst many more difficult days. In the crossfire of blowouts like described above, amidst jeans and t-shirts in a walk-in closet, I made the decision over and over again. To put aside my worry, my ideas about what was best for each of us. To choose to love them—and myself—exactly where we were at, instead. 

How to learn to resign, to throw your hands up when it’s time. How to find new space. How to create it. How to care for someone other than yourself without letting it overwhelm. How to be tender. How to choose love in discomfort, right inside of it. How to open your eyes. 

It sounds so simple now; it felt like falling backwards into a giant rainbow ball pit… From fear of falling, to chaos, to something like peace. Vibrant, hectic peace. (My favorite.) 

I chuckle when someone who doesn’t understand living with children offers help in the form of ‘self-care’ suggestions, uses terms like quiet mornings, slow-cooked meals, or long walks. Of course, I found those luxuries when I could. But mostly, stolen moments and meditations in the closet were all there was from that day on. And it was okay. In fact, I will miss this time with them forever. Evenings playing board games, making videos, and kicking soccer balls were my solace. 

Home was right there, waiting for me to get off the closet floor and open the door. 

To choose true freedom: being exactly where you are. All in. 

I’d still chose it—would still chose them—over and over.