Louise Thayer reflects on how we move through the difficult process of self-discovery.
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I have lived in 23 different places (on two separate continents) in 37 years, and only three of them were before the age of 21. That means I’ve moved a lot (and have a great memory!). That also means I should be an expert at it by now and indeed, the physical process is much simpler for me than for most people. For the last four years I’ve resided in the 10′ x 7′ living quarters of my horse trailer. There’s a full-sized bed over the gooseneck of the trailer and the rest of the space is for everything I currently own.
It’s been an adventure of immense scale, especially considering I used to think of myself as a homebody. I imagined I’d get a job in Wales, close to the place where I grew up, get married and have children. Actually, this was never what I imagined, so much as assumed because I couldn’t picture what else there could be out there for me. I had plenty of role models growing up, but they all lived within an easy driving distance, most were married with children, most worked 9-5 jobs or a variation thereof.
I think the urge to flee came early.
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I think the urge to flee came early. I practiced with human interactions as I ran into unmanageable emotions and grief and I most definitely fled when I found love on the other side of the world (because that’s what Texas felt like to me at the time!).
There I found a life of working with horses and people in wide-open landscapes. All of which sounds idyllic and it’s a story I was pressed to tell 5000 times or more. With every re-telling came less attachment and even less embellishment because, as I’ve discovered, I was running from myself back then. I didn’t know it at the time, because it played out like a fairytale romance after the cataclysm that had been my last relationship and first torn-open heart.
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Even as I began what I thought was the life of my dreams there were fractures in my tale. Initially it felt as though I’d put enough distance between this and my past life, but the roots of sorrow went right through the earth and equally through the vacuum that was my soul. I was constantly trying to nourish myself from an exhausted supply of nutrients.
In my anxiety I sought to follow the path my (by then) husband was laying down for himself. He, in response to my inaction, kept believing that he was making all the right decisions for us and for our future family. In his slipstream I made my first out-of-state move, to the Mojave Desert, as his career dictated, because by now, somehow, he was an enlisted U.S. Marine.
There was a period of time, surrounded by desert and xeriscape-d “yard of the month” contenders where I thought that maybe this was it. After all, military benefits and housing felt safe and secure as did the concept of everything on base being geared towards building strong families. I have such huge respect and appreciation for the support that was available to me during my husband’s three deployments, but the more I stayed there, the more out of control of my own destiny I felt.
It began to seem as though my whole life was mandatory fun and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in the wrong for not appreciating all that I had.
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“Mandatory fun” is what the guys called any unit activity they were compelled to attend outside of their already long work hours. It began to seem as though my whole life was mandatory fun and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in the wrong for not appreciating all that I had. None of it felt real except for my connection to my horses and dogs. When I reluctantly agreed to leave my Texas home, I dug in and insisted they came with us in spite of the expense. They proved a lifeline I hung onto. My relationship suffered hugely because I wasn’t even there. I was somewhere else, compressed inside my heart, getting more and more furious with myself for saying and doing nothing about it but I didn’t even know how to begin.
Eventually the paradox solved itself and I had a breakdown. I remember being on a bed in the spare room of our beige house, just knowing I was losing my mind. I don’t recall if I was screaming or crying, but I do know that to this day there’s a weight attached to that memory because I ‘knew’ at that point that I was going to have to run away again.
I had some talk therapy following my collapse. My husband finally got to see what I’d been holding in and (very thankfully) insisted I go, or I would have played off my hysteria as nothing, out of embarrassment for letting the dark out. I’ve subsequently discovered other healing modalities that I feel are even more beneficial, but at the time the catharsis of being able to formulate the words I’d never said aloud was huge. I remember crying as I sat across from a kind-hearted stranger, acknowledging a truth from deep within … “I’m not a bad person.”
I knew I had to go, but I didn’t have a clue how to deal with the pain of separation from what I’d believed was my forever.
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I still left. I left my marriage and I left California and moved back to Texas. At the time it was agreed that the horse trailer was mine and the truck would be his, which meant that we faced at least a two day road trip together. I could hardly breathe during the weeks before we left, my anguish was compounded when he told me that he couldn’t help me to pack up the truck. Not because it was too difficult to do by myself, but because I realized at that moment that I was making a long-needed decision to tackle life alone and at the same time wounding him deeply. I felt terrified and mentally exhausted. I knew I had to go, but I didn’t have a clue how to deal with the pain of separation from what I’d believed was my forever.
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In the end, we made the journey and we made it special. It only began to come together after we had two trailer tires blow out in quick succession … meaning that with just one spare on board and the evening closing in, one of us had to stay with the unhooked trailer and horses on the side of the interstate. Visions rushed into my head of the horses panicking inside the trailer and knocking it over or it being run into by a sleepy semi-truck driver. Luckily neither of these things happened. I was in the drainage culvert with my two dogs and a very unhappy black cat. I didn’t know if this man who had said “I do” would simply say “enough” and leave us there. We had one cell phone between us and it was in my hand as he drove off in the general direction of Phoenix to find a trailer tire on a Sunday afternoon.
I was conjuring every worst case scenario and I could barely function for the thought of how stupid I was being. What the hell was I doing, walking away from the man I loved, back to a place I knew I was “supposed” to be, when I couldn’t even trust my own judgment? I remember castigating myself as a selfish, spoiled, vain nothing of a wannabe writer and horsewoman, a failure in marriage, unlovable.
I think that with every huge shift of consciousness, there comes a moment of complete stillness and clarity.
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I think that with every huge shift of consciousness, there comes a moment of complete stillness and clarity. Purely because I couldn’t escape the truth of my heart, the self-flagellating voice subsided. I was left with my own inner resources and a new voice, one I barely knew, began to speak a little louder.
I scribbled everything down while listening to the sound of thousands of tonnes of metal screaming along the interstate. I wrote first about my terror and then my possible solutions and I gradually became very quiet. I made a few phone calls and within 10 minutes had two local people on standby; strangers who immediately told me to call if I needed them to come with their trucks and hook up to my trailer.
A state trooper stopped by to investigate the “abandoned horses” and hearing the abbreviated version of my predicament, he left me with road flares and instructions of how to place and light them. As I lit the first flare I remember feeling a tiny ember of bravery, just a candle flicker of fire in my chest. The drama of the situation forced me to stop and just ‘be,’ not to run from my fears but to stay present and choose to let them exist.
Of course he came back. With two tires and a DVD and goodies for us to share. I remember the palpable feeling that we were in the center of something huge. With my potential crisis scenarios averted, all I had was love for this man who once again had proved himself reliable in the face of my shaky insecurity.
We laughed. I spontaneously remembered where there was a rodeo grounds not twenty miles away and we decided to sleep in the truck that night rather than push on to our intended stop. We let the horses out in the arena to roll and shake off the trauma of the day. We watched the movie in the back seat of his truck that had been ours. We remembered why we liked each other in the first place. We pulled it together in spite of the knowledge of what was to come next. That night surpassed my expectations of how we could still feel towards each other. It gave me hope for a future where making a difficult decision didn’t necessarily lead to ruin and despair.
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This is no fairy tale, but I’m skipping forwards almost a decade to say that by the time this column is published, I will have moved again, to a place where I want to stay—for so many good reasons. I go forward with huge hope towards a future that I’m most definitely a part of. The gypsy lifestyle will still call to me, and I’ll get to indulge it with what comes next, but my roots are deep now and tapped into something much greater than I ever knew was available before I allowed myself to explore.
I don’t think that every body is fated for such wanderlust, and I applaud those of you who have grown like trees forever. You’ve given the rest of us something to hold onto and look up at in wonder. Just don’t forget to shake the branches every once in a while and see what falls out just for you.
Photo—Tom Sayles/Flickr
Yet in all that, you managed to bless us and help us heal. I’ll tell you the story one day….
Thank you both very much.
Love this.
Wonderful.