The boy I "babysit" is 14 and a freshman in my high school. As he hops in the car on our drive home he tells me about a girl he has a massive crush on.
She's one of the few Korean girls at our school and though she is not in my year, I somehow know of her, just like you would know about a celebrity. She has long gleaming hair, flawless skin, and the one thing I latch on to, she is extremely thin.
In that nanosecond of recognition, the Belief locks into place.
From that moment on, I can trace the rest of my youth, a map of anorexia and deprivation. Hours on the treadmill. Exacting calorie counting. The relief of binging that turns into horror as you become simultaneously stuffed and more empty than ever.
I am 21.
I have just graduated from college with no plans for my life.
I am howling with despair and numb with detachment.
I think I am an adult and I am finally free. But the price of freedom is depression and a loneliness so deep I don't even have a name for it. It's just a nimbostratus cloud that never lifts.
I consider taking antidepressant medication. I have no money for health insurance. I consider taking it anyway. I talk to a lay counselor about it. She is in her early 60's and invites me into her home. We sit in her living room and she tells me how her life changed when she took the medicine. How she used to spend countless days in this very living room, curtains drawn, a perpetual dusk. I consider what it would be like to live in a world of warm tones.
I decide that I am a sad person. I have never not been a sad person. And I don't want to not be me.
I am 25.
I am married.
I am going to start law school.
I have a direction, a plan, finally, for how I will become a real adult.
But I am running out of time. Because as all 20-somethings know, life ends at 30.
There is a cliff after which nothing you do matters; you are obsolete and irrelevant. You are un-youthful and un-attractive. You are un-desirable and un-cool. You are over. You are done.
You are old.
And that cliff is called 30.
I am 29.
Two months before I fall off the Cliff, I decide, my life is over anyway. I might as well have a baby.
Despite being married for 7 years, the idea of having a baby never appealed to me.
But the spouse wanted one. And I knew it would sanctify and edify me, round out my understanding of God as a cosmic parent. If there is any Good in life, it must be found near the heart of God.
I knew having children would be the beginning of the end. And I was at the end anyway.
I am 30.
I have a baby.
I am shattered. My routines are gone. My ability to control and plan my life are gone. My old comforts are gone. My self-determination and self-reliance are gone.
I have no energy to put up with any bullshit except the baby's bullshit. As a result, lifelong relationships fall to the wayside, as I'm not holding up my end of the bargain anymore.
I do my best to keep the baby healthy and above all, secure.
I realize I don't know the first thing about how to raise a secure human being.
I realize I am the epitome of an insecure human being.
I am so out of my depths.
I am 37.
It is today.
I have been over the 30-cliff for 7 years now. For 7 years I have been irrelevant, uncool, and as good as dead to the world.
And to my surprise, I am still alive.
To my surprise, I am not sad anymore.
To my surprise, I have let go of the Belief. I can forgive myself for not looking perfect. In fact, I can even feel gratitude.
My worst fear--that I am not independent, not wholly self-reliant, not an island, impermeable to chaos--is now completely realized. And yet, it is okay.
In truth, I am more alive than ever.
To my surprise, at the end of something, there has always been more.
Incredulously, there is more.
And there was no way to discover it without coming to the end.
And so I am no longer afraid of the end.
Because at the end,
there is a Beginning.
***epilogue***
Thank you kind readers who have graciously walked with me through so many years of blogging. It's finally time to say goodbye! I'll be taking this site down in a few months (3? 4?) and hoping my kids never see the dark struggles I had as a mother until they're old enough to understand how much I love them despite abhorring motherhood. May you all find the joy and freedom that can only be had on the other side.
