All the Lives We Could Have Lived
A letter to my High School Class of 1999
Dear Ridgeview Wolfpack 1999,
How do you like your life? Is it anything like what you thought it would be? There’s nothing like an impending 20 year reunion to get us to reckon with our lives.
A few months ago, while I was in town visiting family and friends, I took a drive through the old neighborhood. Driving south on Wible Road, I got a strange feeling when I turned right on Pacheco. I noticed the field for Crest theater was filled with new businesses. New to me. I know the giant drive-in movie screens were torn down long ago, but my heart has yet to catch up. I gave it a moment to ache and mourn the loss of such a nostalgic piece of land.
I turned left onto Akers, then again onto Thatch Avenue. I drove slowly along the short cul-de-sac and thought of the old neighbors. I thought of Floyd and the Stokes. I crossed Akers and drove the other side of Thatch and thought about Clayton Green and Sherry Carlson and Heather Tipton, and the big beautiful tree.
I drove Marina all the way to Harris and looked down Margalo and thought of the Fuentes family. I turned right on Harris then left onto Stine Road. I drove all the way to Ridgeview High, pulled into the parking lot and got out to look at the softball field. As I stared at the field, I thought about my years there and having the abortion so I could keep playing. All the striving, and the hiding. I got back in my car and drove on.
I turned right onto Hosking and left onto Akers. I passed Loudon Elementary School and teared up again. Then I parked on the corner of Akers and Harris Road — the very spot where I experienced my first French kiss. Awwwkward. Peer pressure was a bitch, wasn’t it? I listened to Chris Stapleton as I stared out the window, at Challenger Park. More trees now, different playground, and kids playing who weren’t even a thought when we were their age.
I sat and thought about my life. I thought about all that has happened in the last 20 years. I thought about what I might say to all of you, if I were to see you at our 20 year reunion. If we would have a night filled with show and tell, what would I tell you? What do I have to show for myself?
Let me start by telling you what I don’t have.
I don’t have a husband. Or a wife. I’m not gay, but I can’t help but do things like that now. (If YOU are gay, I’m a safe person, even though I now believe in God. I know, the madness.) I did the marriage thing once, very briefly, and it didn’t work out. Surprise, surprise. I met him when I was 19 and still totally lost. I left home for the first time to be with him, and fell into my first noticeable *depression* from being so lonely and bored, at THE BEACH, of all places. It’s been almost 15 years since we divorced, and I always say it feels like a different lifetime ago. It was. So no husband for me to show and tell of. I’m not opposed to giving it another go, though, if it ever makes sense.
I don’t have kids. If I had chosen different routes, I would, maybe (because you never really know), have a 22 year old, and/or a 4 year old. But I chose the routes I chose. So no kids to show and tell of, and I’m still torn about having them. I’ve had many different ideas, over the years, about my desire to have children. There was one point when I blindly wanted them. Then I went through a phase where I wouldn’t quite like to have them, at all. Then I reached a point of happy indifference. Now, I think, creating and caring for a WHOLE OTHER HUMAN besides myself is an awfully grand responsibility. It has taken me such a long time to really start loving myself. I’ve grown a healthy dose of reverence when it comes to loving another human well.
I don’t have a house. Though if I’d stayed married, I would probably be living in a million dollar home in Orange County right now. I don’t have a condo either. Or a townhouse. Or a tiny home, though one can dream! I don’t even have an RV, though again, the dream is very much alive. The only thing I own of any generally perceivable value, is a Vespa. Bet you never thought I’d drive a Vespa, did you? Me neither! So no house to show and tell of. Though I am on my way to owning a 2019 Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen, which doubles nicely as a camper.
I don’t have a 9–5, 40 hour/week career with benefits and 401K. No retirement plan. Not even a 5 year plan. I could have had a few different careers like this, in the past 20 years. But I don’t. So no *grown-up* job to show and tell of. It’s just therapeutic creativity with recovering addicts on Thursday mornings, and walking the dogs, and blogging. I make enough money to survive and save a little. Me and money are working out our relationship still. And I severed ties with consumerism long ago. Well, mostly.
The other thing I don’t have is the willingness to justify or explain away or make all of my don’t-haves seem *ok*. Because what I do have, after all these years, and all the pain, and all the seeking — what I do have is some semblance of peace, finally.
I’m learning to have peace about my failures. Challenging as it is to call them that. I don’t think anyone’s life, no matter how difficult or ugly or painful, is beyond redemption. We live and we grow and we stumble and fall and we get back up again and we grow some more. And if we’re really in tune with the light, we see that all things can work together for good.
I’m learning to have peace about where I come from. Family is the final frontier, no matter which way you slice it. It’s taken me a while to really know my birth family, and come to terms with all the ways we were and are, and love us anyway. I reckon I will continue working on this until I die. But with each passing day, I feel more confident about creating a new family of my own, with a partner I love, if it should come to pass.
I’m learning to have peace about where I’ve been. I had big plans to use *Africa* as my main talking point, if you should ask what I have to show and tell about. It is true I spent four years living on the Motherland. And what a wild ride it was! But Africa is another outer marker of where I needed to go on my inner journey. Just before I came back home, I thought about how fitting it was that I was drawn to a place like South Sudan, when I had spent a lifetime yearning for peace. I didn’t learn how to build peace there. I learned that I needed to learn how to make peace with myself, there. That journey wouldn’t begin until later.
I’m learning to have peace about who I am. The last few years, I’ve gone through a process of detaching myself from all the labels I had collected over the years. I might as well take it all the way back. Most Outstanding Girl. Athlete. Most Valuable Player. College graduate. Jesus follower. Youth leader. Marathon runner. Traveler. Peace Corps Volunteer. Nomad. Academic. Master of Arts. Advocate. Adventurer. Social justice warrior. International development worker. Peace worker.
And the labels trying to attach themselves to me since I’ve been home? Survivor. Writer. Artist. Entrepreneur. Bohemian. I don’t know if or when it ends — this need I have to cover myself with labels that make me seem safe, or more attractive. What I do know is that I’m aware of it now. I’m doing my best to stop letting labels determine my worth. I’m doing my best to be kind to myself, to listen to myself, to know myself better, and to love myself for who I am, underneath it all.
Maybe it’s just me. Am I the only one thinking about these things right now? Am I the only one wondering at all the lives we could have lived? Am I the only one reckoning with where I’ve been, where I am, and who I want to be? I can’t be the only one. As I think about all of you — all of my fellow Ridgeview High classmates who graduated in 1999 — I wish you peace.
I wish you peace for yesteryears, and peace for today, and peace for the journey. I keep coming back to the awareness that this moment, right now, is all we ever have. That is one thing I learned in South Sudan. It took 34 years, and getting a close-up view of what life is like for war survivors, for it to sink in. We can’t go back. And we can’t make the future brighter by living in darkness today.
One of my favorite quotes is by Mary Oliver. It comes from her poem called The Summer Day. In the last two lines, she says,
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
My answer to the late Mary Oliver is this: I plan to live.
I want to feel all the feelings, and love all the people, and experience all the moments. I want to practice being more, and striving less. I want to soak in beauty, and breathe in light. I want to stay soft and open in a world that tempts me to become hard and closed.
I want to be at peace enough to show up at my 20 year high school reunion without feeling like I need a defense strategy. We’ve all been being humans, living the best we can.
And if my memory serves me correctly, the best moments have usually been the ones when I was able to shut up and listen to someone else’s story. When it comes to my own, I’ve always been better at writing it anyway.
So here’s to the last 20 years, Wolfpack. However and wherever we spent them. Here’s to living each new moment as fully as we can. If we made it this far, let us be grateful! And here’s to the next 20 years, if we are fortunate enough to see them.
