If Not Now…When…

I have made a quiet resolve.

Not the kind of theatrical decision that involves, champagne toasting, ball dropping, Dick Clark, and Monday morning reversals…but rather, a decision born atop a howling wind-swept, rocky-pointed cathedral in the deepest reaches of my heart, and soul.

You may have missed the vision of Meryl Streep, as a 19^th century Irish maiden standing upon just such a rocky outcrop, in the movie The French Lieutenant’s Woman.  She is standing, looking out to sea, the wind whipping her long cloak, red hair, and billowing skirts, around her in a frenzy that might have lifted her from the ground, and threw her into the waiting embrace of the toiling ocean, had it not been for the profound sadness that weighted her soul.  Her clothes the colors of coal, the sea a brackish-turbulent confusion of gray and green, the sky, a cauldron of blue and leaden gray.  The only bright spot in the entire vision was of her wild red hair, glowing against all that gray, green, and steel blue.

I bring this image to your mind for the express purpose of trying to visualize for you the depth of my current decision, its weight, heft, feel, texture and colors. 

It is not dissimilar from a decision I made, 25 years ago.

I was 28 at the time, successful - (if you measure success by money and not debt load), attractive - (if you don’t notice the bouts of anorexia, binging, and self harm), relationship fruitful - (if you can’t see my secret promiscuity born of intense neediness and desperation to be loved), and really good at hiding the self loathing that characterized my every waking moment and populated my night terrors, with demons so fierce, they would have done Stephen King proud.

I am always mildly amused at people who describe their interior poor relationship to self as “poor self-esteem”…that sounds like a summer cold when I compare it to the wild self hatred that I tried to keep in check.  It was like a rabid animal, a RED ZONE case-Cesar Milan the Dog Whisperer might have called it-an all consuming energy that I could barely control, and sometimes couldn’t. 

It pushed me with an all-consuming desire; to drive straight off a steep cliff in my monthly travels north to see my Doctor/customers.  It held a gun to my head, sometimes nightly.  It caused me to go weeks without eating, spend voraciously, sleep with plenty of the worst kind of wrong men, sometimes it would even make a Doctors scalpel-laying innocently on his tray-and in my line of sight-look like just the right way to end my internal struggle.  If I could have cut it out, given it cancer, strangled it until it’s eyes popped, or in some other way ended my daily fight to keep my head above water, I would have done it, I swear I would have…

But finally, one day, the rising tide captured me and I knew beyond doubt, that Death-At-My-Own-Hand, was no longer a fantastical version of escape, a conceit of perverted potential freedom, from emotional and psychological turmoil… but rather, a real, practical, and decisive way to end the pain and fear, that I could no longer bear. 

Just this morning on my Internet opening page, I find a story of a young British woman-28 she was-who had small parts in Spider Man 3, Serendipity, Frost, and was set to star in an upcoming Biopic, who took her own life, by hanging, in her Paris apartment.

 She too, was “successful, attractive, and desirable.”

 I wish I could say to her…”Hang on, don’t do it…!!!”   Help-so hard to see, so necessary, so seemingly unavailable, will come from every corner, from unimaginable sources, from the heavens-like manna-if you only make the decision to face the fear and live!!!   

But of course, no opportunity to say these things to her exists, so perhaps if I say it here it might reach some other 28 year old, who contemplates such a final solution to that consuming inner fire.

In my 28^th year, on the cusp of my 29^th…I put the gun down, stopped pressing the gas medal just as I crested the biggest hill, and a scalpel went back to just being a sharp medical blade.  I found the way out…or more accurately in.  I survived and eventually began to thrive.  My world no longer serves as a home for night terror demons, I can’t remember the last time I felt the gnawing anxiety that was the hallmark of my first 28 years, I live almost all my days in peace and harmony…and yet…

 This decision…that has come upon me…   A new order of Being…a new sheriff has come to town…a new vista.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, my favorite author of all time, wrote…”Our life is an apprenticeship to truth, that around every circle another can be drawn...under every deep, a lower deep opens.”

 That first deep, in my 28^th year was a leap into what I perceived then as the abyss, I was more afraid than I could begin to describe, and yet, the Universe seemed to use all its might-bent to the service of unlocking the hold terror had over my heart, opening my mind, saving my life…it took years for that first leap’s ripples to settle.  Years before I came to see the full measure of the gift I had been given, hidden under the fear that beat my heart into my rib cage…the beauty, magnificence, and wonder of my salvation will no doubt find its way onto these pages and into your hands should you have an interest.

But today, at 53, there is a new deep to explore, a new emptiness to excavate, a new soil to till.  I am not saving my physical life any longer, which has long since been securely wrapped in the tender hand of forgiveness.  I am not entirely certain what this new deep is meant for, except that at 53-I am, more and more, aware of the ticking clock whose constancy foretells that time is shortening, that the window is closing, for me to attempt to make a gift of my now bright thread into the great tapestry that is being woven by the hand unseen…

 To repay the debt I owe to the people who helped me save my physical life, and forge my Spiritual development.  Rev. Joyce, who made it possible for me to give up the lie that shielded me from a childhood of great pain, fear, and sorrow.  Rosa, whose counsel, commitment, care, and kindness, helped me find and integrate the missing pieces of myself. George, a Teacher in the lineage of Socrates, Aristotle, Gandhi, and the Buddha…a man of such unparalleled wisdom, as to be almost alien to this modern world of surfaces and conceits.  And Tom, who has stood as an almost-unbearably patient and enduring-sentry to support this new leap into the unknown, this new deep I am now willing to explore on these pages, with you, whoever you may be.

I will be here every day, as a spiritual discipline, even though I don’t really know where here is…

I will share my story, and its blessings, the only thing of value I possess.  I will make a concerted effort to bring to bear on the darkness all around us, whatever small light is mine to share, by virtue of the last 25 years of slow and constant sojourning.  I will tell you how I survived; I will share the shape of my Soul.  In the hope that you will follow the advice here defined by the Philosopher Ernest Becker…

“Joy and hope and trust are things one achieves after one has been through the forlornness.”

 Joy, hope, and trust…the other side…

 Until Tomorrow…

 R.

2009 Copyright, Ronni Miller-all rights reserved.