In my other life, I never used to listen to audiobooks. From a practical standpoint, my commute wasn’t much more than a mile each way so I wasn’t in the car long enough to tire of the radio. There was another reason, as well. I am a visual learner. Big time. If I see it, I remember it. However, I have always struggled with auditory input that is passive in nature, such as lectures or, yes, audiobooks. When I tried to listen, even to a familiar story, I would get lost and frustrated with my inability to keep the characters and narrative straight.
But that was my former life. I turned to audiobooks from the library first out of desperation. I know spend about an hour in the car each day and the antennae on my 14-year-old car chooses to rise only occasionally. In my old life, I used to say that I can’t comprehend audiobooks. In my new life, I was willing to learn. My commute is now one of the highlights of my day as I work my way through my library’s selection of books on CD. I use the time to explore genres and non fiction topics that I would usually pass by (inspired by the necessity of a limited collection) and I “reread” favorites from my past.
I am currently on a Stephen King kick. I’ve read everything that man has published, much of many years earlier. The high quality of the narration on his audiobooks makes it a distinct pleasure. I find myself completely pulled into his world as I travel to and from work each day. It’s interesting how his books resonate differently with me now than they did in my other life.
My current selection is Duma Key, a book primarily set on an island in Florida that follows Edgar, a man who took a “geographical” after a tragic accident cost him his health and his marriage. There, he meets Wireman, also drawn to island after catastrophe. I was drawn to a particular line, uttered repeatedly by both men throughout the book:
“In my other life…”
Both men suffered great losses. Edgar, formerly a contractor, lost his arm, his mobility after a hip was crushed and experienced head trauma after being crushed by a crane. While he was recovering, his wife filed for divorce. Wireman, a lawyer, lost both his daughter and his wife and, as a result, attempted suicide, the slug taking his vision as it traveled through his temple. Those losses were stark, a clear delineation between their past lives and their present.
I am drawn to the matter of fact way they accept their new worlds. They don’t spend time bemoaning their losses, although, especially in the case of Wireman’s wife and daughter, the pain is evident when they talk about it. They work within their new limitations to make the most of their new lives without trying to recreate the old.
That is what I have tried to achieve with my own life. I have had to accept that my other life is gone and is beyond reach. Rather than spending time nurturing the loss or trying fruitlessly to recreate what I had, I try to focus on building the best life possible now. I now talk matter of factly about my other life, as distantly as if I was discussing a character in a book.
Some of the changes between my former life and now have been dramatic. I never used to write. I was a private person. And, I always made decisions very conservatively, planning for an imagined future. I have a new name, a new city, a new beau, a new job, a new dog. A new life.
Some of the changes are slight, and strike me as funny.
In my other life, I never rolled the toothpaste tube. This drove my ex crazy, even though we didn’t share toothpaste and it was stored out of sight. Now, I am a dedicated roller.
In my other life, I never used to finish any beverage, always leaving a quarter inch of fluid in the bottom of any glass. I now enjoy every last sip.
In my other life, I hated asparagus. Now it is one of my favorite vegetables.
At a cellular level, our bodies are constantly renewing themselves, shedding the old cells as they die and replacing them with new. Sometimes we need to shed our other lives so that we have room for the new growth.
My other life was lived by an other me. And now I have a new life that fits the new me.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time at friend’s houses. One friend had a younger brother who played Little League and she and I would frequently be dragged along to his games. Now, as sophisticated and suave 6th graders, we were well above watching the 8 year old’s play. We were into the big boys.
Notice the subtle stalking strategies of the human preteen…
I developed an intense crush on a 13 year old named Adam. He was tall and thin with long blond hair. The hair was the important part – put some long locks on any boy at the time and I would start drooling. Adam was like Prince Charming and Jon Bon Jovi all rolled into one. The scary thing is that I knew more about Jon Bon Jovi than I did Adam. You see, although I still have an entire roll of pictures of him, I never summoned the nerve to approach him at the field. He went to a different school, so the intel I had on him was scarce and somewhat suspect.
But I didn’t care. I was happy enough to create his personality and interests while watching him run the bases. I’d weave fantasies of us running off together. I had pictures of him in my school binders (binders full of Adam?) and on my walls. He may not have known who I was, but he was a major fixture in my life. This continued for the next two years.
One day I heard my mom call across the house,
“Lisa. Telephone.”
Picking up, “Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Adam. From the ballpark?”
I almost dropped the phone. It was a dream come true. I knew he had access to my number through a chain of friends, but I never imagined he would call.
Of course, I tried to play it cool.
“You go to —- high school, right?”
“Yeah.”
“A friend of mine goes there. Do you know —–?”
“Nope.”
“Do you play baseball for the school?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you play any other sports?”
“Nope.”
And that was what the entire conversation was like. All 30 minutes of it. He was nice enough, but he was no Prince Charming and certainly no Jon Bon Jovi. In fact, he was boring. He just happened to have long hair.
When I hung up the phone, I also hung up on my crush on Adam.
That was an easy dream to release. I had little invested in it and, as a boy crazy 13 year old, I had lots of other options on the horizon. He truly was easy come and easy go.
Not all dreams are so easy to release. The more time, effort and energy we have invested in a dream, the more we are committed to holding on even when all signs point to letting go. The more we see the dream as a reflection of ourselves, the tighter the binds to the image.
Dreams can be amazing and powerful motivators that help us make wonderful changes. They can inspire and encourage and carry us through the darkest days.
But some dreams are made entirely of fantasy. In order for a dream to become reality, it must contain elements of truth. If we hold tight to unattainable fantasies, we will never be content.
I faced this cold, hard fact dead on when my husband left. I had held tight to a dream of us growing old together. I saw us hand in hand with wrinkles covering our faces and our heads swathed in gray. That dream was no easy go. It was unbelievably painful as it was ripped from my grasp. But until I released it, I would not be happy.
So, how can you tell which dreams are inspirational and which are detrimental? How do you know if you should hold on or release your dream?
Fact Check: Don’t make the mistake I did with Adam. Check the elements of your dream against reality. Preferably sooner than later. Reality will hit regardless, but it’s nice to anticipate and plan for its arrival. Sometimes, the truth derails the dream entirely and sometimes it is merely a roadblock to work around. Regardless of what it is, awareness is key.
Alignment: Does your dream align with who you are and your core beliefs and needs? I see evidence of ignoring this one in the school system. Many second career teachers (especially in math) started out in fields where they were isolated all day. They had always dreamed of being an accountant/underwriter/etc., but they never though to realize that it didn’t align with their need for social interaction. Cue crushed dream.
Perspective: Sometimes the path to achieve a dream doesn’t become apparent until a new perspective has been gained. You pretty much have two choices here: keep on living and shelve the dream until your experiences give you direction or talk with others and hear their take on your aspirations. Of course, friends don’t always know what’s best. Mine encouraged my fantasies about Adam:)
Shift: Many dreams are not all or none. I’ve had fleeting fancies of running in the Olympics. But, let’s be honest. A 5’2″ 35 year old late in life runner has about as much chance of that as Tiger does of becoming president. So, a gold medal was out, but I could still shift my dream to running a marathon – the kind where they let anyone run:) Maybe the dream is the image that can motivate you to a more realistic reality.
And, for goodness sakes, if you have a crush on someone, don’t wait two years to talk to them!
This was one of my first posts on this site (back when I had all of 4 followers, I think). I put it on Facebook today and it’s been generating some interesting feedback so I thought I would repost it again here. Enjoy:)
When I first felt the raw, unwashed trauma of my divorce, I would direct anger and indignation towards anyone who blithely told me that time heals all wounds. How foolish they must be, I thought. They must have never been through any challenges. How could the mere rotation of a clock hand soften the shock and pain of being utterly betrayed from the inside out? I scoffed at the notion.
Luckily for me, time continued on, ignorant of my harsh view of it.
The changes were so subtle at first, I did not notice them. The improvement from one hour to the next too small to be measured. But it was there nonetheless.
A clock made in Revolutionary France, showing the 10-hour metric clock. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As time continued its relentless linear path, my pain followed suit in an inverse relationship, although in a much more randomized pattern. I became accustomed to the things causing my discomfort, and so I was not as aware of them. The pain, once so alien, became familiar and no longer needed attention. Anniversaries came and went and I survived. I layered memories, replacing painful ones with fresher happier ones. The hardest times occurred with diminishing frequency and lessening intensity.
I still dismiss the notion that time will heal all wounds; time is no surgeon, ready to excise the malignant past. However, time does dull the knife’s edge of past traumas, lessening their ability to cause that searing pain, that sharp intake of breath when the blade pierces your heart. The pain becomes duller, more distant, more manageable. It’s as though its initial razor edge is dulled by time dragging it through the rocks lining the river of life, new experiences whittling away the once-sharp edge.
While waiting for the blade of your trauma to dull, carry lots of bandages and always be wary of the edge.
Lessons From the End of a Marriage 