Have you misplaced yourself?
I have. I feel like I’ve lost myself in a year of mishaps, misdemeanors and misadventures. Oh, my, the darkness. Murky, thick, muddy darkness. Not sure exactly how I got there, where I was, or how I escaped.
One day I just did. I cracked the door open a bit and peeked out. A little scary. I retreated, apparently not quite ready for prime time. I tried again a while later and made it to my chair on the porch. This was good. Progress. Sunshine. Eek! Sunshine? I pushed a little further back into the shade and relaxed.
You know the feeling? A shadow creeps over your life and moves in for a while, baggage in tow, takes over the guest room, leaves its toothbrush in your cup in the bathroom. Follows you everywhere. Even leaves the toilet seat up.
Hopefully just a short visit. Not a pleasant one necessarily, but definitely memorable. The shadow just comes in and takes up space. And you? You just wander out of sight.
Finding your way into the sunshine can begin just as quietly.
No fanfare. No great burst of courage. No triumphant soundtrack swelling in the background should you fling open the door and stride purposefully into your new life. Hmm… not so much.
Maybe you crack the door open again. Sit on the porch a little longer. Answer a message you’ve been meaning to answer. Make an actual plan instead of thinking vaguely that you really should make one sometime. Put on a dress you like for no particular reason. Go somewhere. Stay twenty minutes. Come home.
Tiny things. The sort of things that hardly seem worth mentioning, except that after a while they begin to add up.
A little curiosity at first. Something makes you smile. Then you find yourself looking forward to the next day. You see the sun without immediately retreating from it. You sway a little to a song on the radio.
And somewhere along the way you remember something. Little things. Sounds. Sights. Smells. The warmth of a mug of tea in your hands.
This isn’t a comeback.
There is nowhere you’re supposed to get back to. Especially not to some previous version of you waiting in the wings, tapping her foot and impatiently wondering what took you so long.
She isn’t there.
Life carried on while you were out of sight. The world changed. People changed. You changed. Things you knew how to do now apparently require an app, a password containing a special character, a fingerprint scan and the name of your first pet.
Perhaps the question isn’t, How do I get back to who I was?
Perhaps it’s, Who am I now? And what might she like to do next?
That feels a little different. Kinder, somehow.
There is no deadline. No requirement to make up for lost time. No need to arrive back in the world polished, cheerful and fully restored.
You can come as you are. You can open the door an inch. Then two or three.
Maybe tomorrow you’ll sit in the sunshine… or half in the shade.
Until next time.
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