At Least They're Committed

I dragged my wretched carcass out of bed at 6 a.m. Saturday morning to set out to a bridal shower in Grand Junction. I didn’t know if it was exhaustion, the wine the night before or general self loathing, but I was a hopeless emotional waste. Overwhelmed in so many facets of life, underwhelmed in so many, many others. I just had to get ‘better’ in my head before seeing my folks. Didn’t want them to know how rough living can be for me. My nieces drove, I feigned sleep — inwardly crooning, coaching and counseling, trying to claw my psyche above the jagged edges of my self-etched gulch (note: that’s deeper and wider than a grave or crevice). Despite being slowed at least an hour by ski and X-Game traffic, I’d only made a little headway by the time we got to my family home.

Turns out that I didn’t need to get better before seeing my parents, rather I needed to be with my parents to get better; to only for a day be there and their little girl again. Sanctuary. A respite among the confusion and doubt in my life.

Shower was nice as far as those things go. The night with Dad, Mom and Dan — just the four of us at the Watering Hole and later at Dan’s house — was absolutely, quietly spectacular; something that hadn’t happened in decades. “I did not know how empty was my soul until it was filled.” ~ Excalibur. It didn’t take such a long step outside my life to see the overarching promise; to look down on this path and realize while some things — OK, a lot of things — suck, there’s a whole lot that doesn’t either . . . including me. Solace is a mere four hours away; five hours during ski season. Good to know.