Christy Potter's Blog, page 4

Christy Writes: Five, Six, Seven, Eight!

Last night The Guy and I watched “Beyond the Sea,” with Kevin Spacey as Bobby Darin. I love Bobby Darin anyway, and my feelings about Kevin Spacey are, on a scale of one to restraining order, right around 12. The movie was good, but what I can’t stop thinking about is how Bobby Darin knew, his whole life, that he was born to make music. It’s all he was, and all he did.

As far back as I can remember, I have always known I was a writer, but almost no one knows that somewhere in my teens, I started dreaming about being a dancer on Broadway. The fact that I lived in Kansas – and couldn’t dance – threw up some pretty big roadblocks, but I have always had that dream hovering around me.

Why my mind made the leap between Bobby Darin and my Broadway dreams, I’m not entirely sure. But in thinking about it, I’ve realized that dream never really went away. And although the realistic part of my brain is aware that I will never be a Broadway dancer, I won’t let the dream go because it is a part of who I am, one corner of the whole big complicated, smudged up, wild-colored, crooked painting that is my spirit.

If I had moved to New York and begun going on auditions and getting parts in the chorus lines of shows, I’d have found out pretty quick that it’s not about tap shoes, spotlights, and Tony Awards as much as it’s about blisters, pulled muscles, and abject exhaustion. And no one wants their dreams to get all sweaty and covered in Band-Aids.

But more than that, envisioning myself as a dancer in a hit Broadway show is a little reminder that I still have a dream, an unrealized dream. Other dreams I’ve had I have fulfilled, and at that point they stop being dreams and become my reality. And when something becomes your reality, even if it’s wonderful, some of the shine is gone. It’s no longer somewhere you can escape to in your thoughts, a little mental underground burrow that leads to something better.

A few years ago, the company I was working for in northern New Jersey sent me across the river into New York City to film a promo for a project we were working on. We did the filming in this big old loft building near Times Square, and in the room next to us they were holding auditions for a show. The dancers were milling around in the hallway in leggings and torn sweatshirts, stretching, talking, waiting to be called. Through the wall, I could hear the music stop and start as each dancer came in to go through the routine. I was absolutely overcome with longing to quit my job on the spot, put my name on the audition list, and start stretching. I wanted it so bad I could hear my heartbeat in my ears and my hands were shaking. So what did I do? I went back into the room where we were filming and I did my job. And I went home. And I kept dreaming about being a dancer on Broadway.

I guess what it comes down to is that I like knowing there is still something out there I’d love to attain someday. I’m dangling the proverbial carrot in front of my own face, I know, but having something I still want to do makes me feel energized, empowered, maybe even a bit immortal.

I hope you have dreams – dreams you’ve treasured in your heart for as long as you can remember. And I hope you never let them go. The dreams we hold inside are as much a part of us as our reality – maybe even more so.

Minetta Tavern, New York City

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Christy Writes: On scruffy guys in camo, pinky promises, and joy

A friend asked me the other day if I think joy is a choice.

It’s one of those questions that at first glance would seem to have an easy answer, but on deeper reflection I’m not sure it’s that simple.

Can we choose to feel joy? Can we wake in the morning and make the decision to be joyful? If not, can joy be taught, demonstrated, medicated into us? Maybe. But what about those days when you want to choose joy but instead you just feel like kicking stuff? Is it possible to ever find joy anymore in a world that seems to have lost its smile?

Last winter was one of the roughest I’ve had. My father died unexpectedly on Christmas night; financial problems reared their ugly, stupid heads; my little cat died (also unexpectedly); it wouldn’t stop snowing, I had car problems, a flu bug that wouldn’t go away, and lived in an apartment building in which the police conducted 5 a.m. drug raids. Forget about finding joy – I didn’t even want to get out of bed. To top it all off, I made the mistake of reading “The Shipping News.” Great book, but if you’re looking for some good escapist literature to lift you out of your funk, this isn’t one I recommend.

It all passed, of course, and I survived. As John Updike so memorably put it: We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one. But one of the lessons I learned last winter is that one of the worst things you can tell yourself when you’re not feeling joyful is that you should be. Joy will come again.

For me, there are entire days that are just plain old joyful. Days that just feel good, like joy rolled in cinnamon and sugar, days when I don’t choose joy as much as joy chooses me. Other days, meh. Not so much. But here’s where I think the secret lies: finding moments of joy even on the meh days.

My very small friend Jasmine and I were out for a walk last week. I was tired. The sun and the wind were disagreeing over what kind of day it should be. Jazzy was chattering like only a four-year-old can chatter, and she kept running ahead of me. I told her not to get too far ahead and that she absolutely could not cross a street without me. She said she wouldn’t, but she must have sensed my reluctance, because she came back and pinky promised. Anyone who is or has ever been a little girl knows that there is no vow more solemn than the pinky promise. But here’s the thing: I’d completely forgotten about pinky promises. In that moment, when rosy-cheeked Jazzy held out her tiny pinky finger to seal the promise she’d made to me, guess what? I felt joy.

I was at the library earlier today – because a snowstorm is looming over the eastern part of the country and if I’m snowed in without a delicious stack of books, bad things will happen – and I stood in line to check out my books behind an elderly woman who was talking with the librarian. At one point her gloves slipped off the counter and landed, unnoticed, by her feet. I picked them up and gave them back to her. A moment later, her cane fell over. A scruffy young man in camo hurried over, picked it up, put it back in place, smiled at her, called her ma’am. And just like that, there was joy all over the place.

Whether joy is a choice or not, I can’t say. All I know is that when I keep my eyes open for those flashes of joy, I find them. And no matter how down I’ve been feeling about the state of the world today, in those moments I’m able to smile to myself and think, “Yeah. We’ve got this.”

Sophia, contemplating the joy of having stolen my writing chair.

 

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Christy Writes: Notes to my younger self

My 19-year-old niece, Alexandria, came over just before Christmas with her first serious boyfriend in tow. Since I held her in the hospital the day after she was born, I’ve considered Alex my defacto kid, so I was glad to see this boy appears to be very good to her and she seems genuinely happy. I’ve told her in the past that it’s important – vital, even – to have a partner who treats you with respect. I’m glad she listened to that, because I’m not sure she’s ever listened to me about anything else. She’s a teenager so obviously anything she needs to know, she already does. Duh, Aunt Christy. What-ever, you sound just like my parents.

After they left that night, I started thinking about everything I wish I’d known at Alex’s age. And when I was younger than her. And when I was older than her. And yesterday. For instance:

Things I’d tell my seven-year-old self…

You won’t always think boys are gross.
You are smart.
You are beautiful.
You are hilarious.
You can do anything you put your mind to.
No, it’s not weird that you know the words to every Nat King Cole song. Well, maybe a little.

Things I’d tell my junior high self…

You will get your period so stop stressing that you’ll be the last one in your class to get it. Thanks for the extra paranoia, Judy Blume.
Yes, you will love a boy besides Tommy someday.
You won’t use algebra again. Ever.
You are smart. Maybe not at algebra, but see above.
Mean girls suck. Wait until you meet them in high school.
You are beautiful. The weird stuff your body is doing is normal. Wait until you see the stuff it does over 40 – oy vey, don’t even get me started.

Things I’d tell my high school self…

Your body is fine so stop stressing that you’re not pretty enough. Thanks for the extra paranoia, Wildfire paperback romances.
Yes, you will love a boy besides Greg someday.
You will use Spanish again. A lot.
Mean girls suck. Wait until you meet them in college.
Yeah, you’re kind of a nerd. Embrace it. Nerds run the world.
You didn’t get the lead in the school play. It’ll be fine.
You didn’t make drill team. It’ll be fine.
Someday you’ll miss having problems like these.

Things I’d tell my college self…

You might want to pace yourself on the drinking thing.
Yes, you will love a boy besides Michael someday.
You’re smart.
You’re beautiful.
Your grades matter. Go to class. What? Yes, I know you’re tired and heartbroken – see numbers one and two again, then get your butt to class.
Mean girls suck. Wait until you meet them in the workplace.
Go to class.
Go to class.
For crying out loud, go to class.

Things I’d tell my twenty-something self…

If that’s the best car you can afford, you might think deeply about public transportation.
Early Garage Sale and Parents’ Attic is a perfectly acceptable decor theme.
Yes, you will love a boy besides Jason someday.
You’re smart.
You’re beautiful.
Mean girls will always suck.
Credit cards are real money.
Checks are real money.
You don’t have any real money.
Beer and Cheerios are not dinner. Well, not a good dinner anyway. Okay, not a nutritious dinner – when did you get so argumentative?
Yes, adulthood is awesome and horrible at the same time. Welcome to life.

Things I’d tell my thirty-something self…

It’s not okay for him to treat you that way.
You’re smart.
You’re beautiful.
You haven’t used algebra at all, have you? Ha.
Your girlfriends are important. Don’t neglect them now.
Start saving for retirement. I know it’s “light-years away” but light-years go faster than you know, smart aleck.
Get enough sleep. You’ll thank me later.
Moisturize. You’ll thank me for that later too.
Get to know who you really are, as an adult.
Learn to love your own company.
Learn to love your spirit.
Learn to love your body. If not now, when?

Things I want to tell myself right now…

You’re over 40. You’re smarter than ever. You’re more beautiful than ever. This is who you really are. This is the life you couldn’t even conceive of when you were any of the above ages. You’ve earned every crease, every memory, every moment. Your past wasn’t as bad as you remember, and your future is brighter than you could even imagine. Go you.

Winter Trees

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Christy Writes: Saying buh-bye to 2015

Fair warning: I’m road-trip lagged, coming off a Christmas sugar-and-chardonnay rush, and my mind wants to get back to writing but the rest of me is willing to just put it on the list of New Year’s Resolutions and go to bed. For better or for worse, my mind usually wins.

The end of the year is always a weird time for me. When I was a kid, it was all about Christmas, of course, and please God I promise I’ll do every speck of my homework every night if you please just let school be cancelled tomorrow because of snow, and the sparkly excitement of New Year’s and the fresh start I didn’t even know I didn’t need yet.

I could use a fresh start this year. Or maybe a running start.

Actually, I changed my life in some pretty profound ways this past year. No regrets. But somehow, watching the year fade out still tends to make me think about roads not taken, books I will never read, chances missed, frogs kissed, and all those days that somehow felt like I was working on a giant jigsaw puzzle of nothing but sky.

Maybe no regrets doesn’t actually apply. Maybe it’s more like no major regrets.

Driving to my mother’s house for Christmas I noticed, as though for the first time, all the things that had painted the backdrop of my childhood. Things I saw until I didn’t, things I began to not see even when I was looking right at them. I saw them again this year. The street my friends lived on, the post office, my old apartment building, the park, my high school. All the familiar things were still there, anchoring my memories even as the town changed around them. It was more moving than I could have anticipated. I suppose it’s this perfect storm of middle age that makes me find my life simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting. There is so much I’ve left behind, and so much still ahead of me.

In the midst of my annual exam last week, my 10-year-old gynecologist asked me how grad school is going. Fine, I told her. “I admire you,” she said. “It’s hard enough to focus on school when you’re young.”

The urge to crush her head like a walnut with my thighs was tremendous.

The thing is, I don’t always feel my age. Other times I feel every year plus ten more. It’s the same weird force that makes me moisturize my face like a woman possessed while trying not to wear clothes that will make me look too young. I’d explain it if I could. All I know for sure is that 2015 and I have one thing in common: it’s been an awesome ride, but man – we’re tired.

Love and peace to you all. You’re worth more than you realize. Love one another. See you in 2016.

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Christy Writes: When the Holidays Aren’t All That Happy

It’s been awhile since I posted anything new here. Part of that is due to the demands of full-time grad school plus work, in addition to promoting my new book. The other part is the feeling that has been draped over the world these past few weeks like an opaque blanket of despair and fear. I have been largely absent from social media as I won’t engage in fighting about any of it, but apparently not many people feel the same reticence.

And now it’s Thanksgiving.

This is the holiday in which Americans typically gather for a large meal and often pause, either privately or take turns around the table, and say what they’re thankful for. It’s nice, that tradition, and I’ve done it myself at various gatherings.

But let me just throw this out there…

What about the times you’re just not feeling it? Yes, you’re blessed and you know you’re blessed. You have so much more than other people in the world. You get that. But sometimes that’s cold comfort when you really just want to kick stuff.

I was talking with a dear friend about this just the other day. She’s having family issues and various other frustrations that life sometimes hands out like after-dinner mints, and she said she gets so aggravated when people tell her to just count her blessings and remember how much worse things could be. “Of course they could be worse,” she told me. “That doesn’t make the way they are any less hard.”

Yes.

I think sometimes we do more harm than good with that could-be-worse thing. I’m aware that I am a 46-year-old middle class woman in America who is typing this on my laptop in my warm home with a stocked refrigerator and a closet full of clothing. I am keenly and wrenchingly aware that somewhere right now in this country there are women my age who are huddled under blankets in doorways. I know there are women my age in other countries who are praying that their families aren’t killed during the night or that their children will not starve to death. I try to never, ever take my blessings for granted.

But guess what?

Knowing how much worse other people have it doesn’t mean your problems automatically go away. And in fact, shaming someone for how blessed they are just adds a layer of guilt on top of whatever else they’re feeling. In my personal world, I know people who are struggling single parents, who have lost loved ones, who have been laid off, who have health concerns and broken hearts and problem children and car repair bills and vet bills and leaky roofs and stressful jobs and slow-running drains and bad haircuts. I, for one, am not going to tell them they should just be thankful they don’t live in Darfur. They already know that. But knowing it doesn’t make their own burdens easier to bear.

Sometimes it’s okay to acknowledge that you aren’t happy, that things aren’t going well, that there are moments and days and weeks and months that just plain suck. Could it be worse? Yes. Will it get better? Yes. But if right now you’re facing Thanksgiving and then Christmas and New Year’s and all you really want is to just flip the bird to the next two months, you go right ahead.

I’m thankful for all of you. Now let’s eat.

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Christy with a Camera: On My Pilgrimage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went on a spiritual pilgrimage this past week – a ten-mile trek along the Delaware River, ending at Ringing Rocks Park in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. I walked without music or human company, but you know I had to take my camera…

 

Flower power

 

The Delaware River

 

Little winged friend

 

Big winged friend

 

 

My path

 

The Delaware River

 

Pumpkins

 

 

Bridge

 

The Ringing Rocks

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Christy Writes: Why Was I Running?

When I was in elementary school, there was a little boy who used to chase me after school. I didn’t know his name, I didn’t know anything about him except where he lived and that he was younger than me.

I knew where he lived was because I had to walk past there every day on my way home from school. I knew he was younger than me because he didn’t go to my school and was always playing in his yard when I went past. I have no idea why he chased me. One day he just started running at me and I, terrified and startled, ran.

After that, of course, I was an easy target. He knew I’d run, so he’d chase me. I hated this kid with every ounce of my soul. I was humiliated because he was younger than me. To kids, age is everything. If you’re so much as a week older than someone, you’re automatically a bit higher than them in the societal world of children. This boy was younger than me, yet he scared me. He scared me enough that I ran from him. Every day. I’d eventually lose him – he never chased me more than a couple of blocks – but I’d end up crying and winded and furious, at him and at myself.

“Why do you run?” one of my friends asked curiously. “What do you think he’s going to do if he catches you?”

I didn’t know.

I had no idea what I was afraid of, and that was the scariest part of all. If I’d have let him catch me, just to see what would happen, I’m sure I’d have stopped being afraid. I was eight. He couldn’t have been more than five. What could he have done? But I didn’t know, and that’s what was so frightening.

I remembered this story earlier this week when I was setting out on a spiritual pilgrimage I’d planned for one of my classes. I had mapped out my journey, a ten-mile trek along the Delaware River that ended at Ringing Rocks Park. Per my professor’s instructions, I was going alone, with my cell phone on silent and stashed deep in my bag. I had nothing but my own thoughts for company. (And my camera, of course.)

As I sat on a bench at the beginning of my trek, journaling and preparing myself mentally and spiritually, I suddenly felt like I used to when that boy would chase me. What was going to happen over the next ten miles? I literally had no idea. But spending seven hours alone, without even my headphones to keep me company, was more than daunting. I am okay with being alone, in fact I enjoy it. But this was a long stretch of just walking. And thinking. So often lately I’m chased by my thoughts, those snarling, nasty little beasts I do my best to outrun. Why do I run? What do I think they’re going to do if they catch me?

I don’t know.

So I set out on my pilgrimage. For ten miles I walked. At first I just ambled along, self-consciously lifting a hand in greeting to walkers, runners, and cyclists heading the other way. After awhile, I found myself soothed by the the soft thump of my rucksack against my lower back and the scrunch of my shoes in the fallen leaves. I thought, I meditated, I ruminated, I prayed, I listened. All around me were birds and insects and squirrels and field mice and ducks. A gray egret beside the water let me get closer than I’d have expected him to. The water rushed in places and sat still and shimmery in others.

What I learned from my pilgrimage is vast and varied. I learned that I may be 46.5 years old and have barely gotten out of my chair in the past six weeks, but I’m still strong enough to hike ten miles. I learned that I feel closest to God when I’m outside. I’ve learned that after hours of walking in solitude, you do some emotional clearing and learn what (and who) is worth hanging onto, and what isn’t. I’ve learned that I’m pretty resourceful when I come up against unexpected roadblocks. I learned that it’s okay, even empowering, to look behind you at how far you’ve come. And I learned that sometimes when you stop running, what’s chasing you isn’t scary after all.

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Christy Writes: Why I Write

Of course I stole the title of this piece from Joan Didion, who stole it from George Orwell. Unlike these two, however, not that many people have heard of me, at least not on a global literary scale, which is why I find it all the more imperative to address why I write. People read essays like this with names like Orwell or Didion on them because they’re fascinated to find out what makes well-known writers so good at their craft. Perhaps we want it to rub off a little, making us better at our own work, or maybe we feel it’s enough to read it, then give a slight, knowing nod that says “I hear you, Joan Didion. I get it,” and walk away feeling a little closer to her.

You aren’t reading this because you’re terribly interested to know why Christy Potter writes. But perhaps you should be. I write in spite of the fact that I’m not well-known, my local library doesn’t have a shelf full of books with my name on the spine, nothing I’ve written has ever been assigned to a high school literature class. I’m not even a crossword puzzle answer.

Yet.

It’s my one-word thesis.

I write because I believe the world will, at some point, want to hear what I’m saying. It’s an ego thing only incidentally (all writers have a big ego no matter what they tell you). Mostly it’s because I’m not extraordinary. I don’t think what I have to say is particularly mind-changing, revolution-starting, or belief-shattering, and the days when people listened to those who stood on their soap boxes and shouted ended the moment everyone grabbed a megaphone. Now the ones who shout the loudest are usually the ones who aren’t saying anything at all. I write because I don’t find myself all that different from anyone around me, except for the fact that I can write. As Anais Nin famously put it, “The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” If I can put pen to paper and give voice to what everyone around me is unable to say, that’s reason enough to be a writer.

I write because I don’t know how to not write. I write because, as with so many others before me, I started writing when I was very young, and once you make a promise like that to your child self, you can forget about reneging on it. It will follow you around forever, throwing its shadow over everything else you try to do, dropping what ifs for you to trip over, whispering around your thoughts like an unrequited love.

I hope every artist feels that way about their art, no matter what their medium.

Like a lot of writers, I was a dreamer as a child, but not particularly shy or socially awkward other than the fact that dealing with others meant I had to make an early exit from the party going on in my thoughts.

When I was about 11, I developed a fascination with time. I was obsessed with the whole idea that time, while something we block out in seconds and minutes and days, in seasons and decades and calendar pages, is still abstract, uncontrollable, truly measurable only when it’s behind us. In school one day, the teacher gave us my favorite assignment: write a story. I wrote mine about time. Specifically, it was about an argument between Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow over which of them was the most important. After the teacher collected our stories, he read them out loud, without saying who had written what. When he finished mine, a rumble went around the room, and he said “Well, I think we all know this one is Christy’s.” I was alternately mortified and elated. Mortified because what 11-year-old wants everyone in her class to crane their necks around to stare at her? Elated because I had a writing style, I had a voice before I could even comprehend what that meant, and everyone knew it.

As you might expect for a child who not only dwells on abstract concepts but anthropomorphizes them, people found me odd. Creative, yes, but odd. At the time, when everyone in my age group was obsessed with fitting in, I was devastated to find out my classmates thought I was weird. But like the John Waters movie I’ve always imagined my life to be, I had my moment when some of those same people came to my first book signing in my hometown. It’s pretty clear that now they find me weird and successful. I can live with that. Lately I wonder if perhaps I write so that people will continue to find me weird. It’s a badge of honor now, like a membership card I carry in my wallet. The Union of Weird Writers. Get called weird ten times, get a free sub.

I write because I hate it. I write because writing is a bastard of a taskmaster, because it drives me to the keyboard every day, because it takes ideas and sticks them onto my brain when I’m trying to fall asleep, because it pushes me out of bed in the morning, because it makes me read essays called “Why I Write” by writers more famous than me. I write because somewhere in the back of my mind lives the idea that if I can just write that one thing, that one blazing, glorious, perfect, searing, memorable piece, I’ll be done. I’ll be free of writing’s tyranny and I can call it a day and go sit on the porch with Harper Lee and drink sweet tea. But I know that will never happen because writing an amazing piece is like getting a good night’s sleep. It’s great and all, but you’re going to need another one pretty soon.

I write as an adult for the same reasons I wrote as a child. I notice things. As I write this there is a dead branch outside my window with a single, battered brown leaf that’s just barely hanging on. With every breeze that goes past, I expect the leaf to give up and go with it. But instead it shudders and waves and settles back down. It seems noteworthy to me, the rather Wyeth-like quality of this scene, and I think it might be a metaphor for something or the beginnings of a poem. I will never find out, though, because four seconds later I’m noticing something else, and also I’m writing this.

Having spent the majority of my career as a newspaper journalist, this all felt, for awhile, a bit dirty to me. Writing books, magazine articles, any kind of creative pieces were what I had fantasized about for so long, and then it became my live-in love. It saw me in my pajamas, crying, disheveled, drunk, exhausted. The fantasy has become a reality and I’m not sure what to make of it. But I have gradually learned that it’s not about what I’m writing, it’s about the fact that I’m writing at all.

I write because it’s my art. I write because I have pictures in my head and I can’t paint. I hear music for a song I can’t compose. I write to free the art within me the only way I know how. I feel so much art living and breathing and growing inside that I sometimes wonder if I’m swinging hand in hand down the right path with it. Fiction. Wait, non-fiction. Creative non-fiction. Poetry. No, wait. A play! An epic saga? A series! Did I already say fiction?

It’s this ongoing battle in my head that makes me write lines like these in my journal:

Invisible barriers,

walls I’ve put up

with no memory

of how to tear them down.

Stumbling, sprawling,

nothing beneath me

but my own failures,

nothing to break my fall

but my fear of falling.

Gasping for air,

straining to find the sun,

kneeling in the rain,

sobbing at Updike’s grave.

The path I’d so carefully laid

now blurred out by my tears.

The rain dries on my skin,

the tears dry on my face.

Onward and forward

is the only choice I have.

To go backward would cost me

far too much.

The ending I must write

is still out there

somewhere.

It’s those agonizing moments that stir up strangulation thoughts in my head when someone tells me they want to write a book “someday,” when they “have time.” The implication that it’s easy, the creative equivalent to a summertime hammock nap, makes me feel like I’m going to burst into tears or burst into flames or both. It’s not easy. If it were, I’m not sure I could do it at all.

I write because you don’t know who I am.

I write because I do know who I am.

My one-word thesis turns its back to me as I reread this and realize that even if you don’t ever know who I am, even if my name isn’t going to be spoken at the same cocktail parties with Joan Didion’s and George Orwell’s, I do know who I am. I’m a writer. I’ve always been a writer. I will always be a writer. And I will always be writing.

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Buy Christy’s Books

I have written four books that are available for purchase directly from me. All but one are also available on Amazon, and all are available as print copies and e-books. Please click the book cover images below for ordering information. If you have questions or special requests, please drop me a note at Christy@ChristytheWriter.com.

                   

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Christy Writes: Stopping the Midlife Meltdown

It’s been a busy few weeks here as I’ve launched my new book, started seminary, and tried to figure out why the summer went by so fast. It speeds up every year, the little beast.

I am a week into seminary now and I’ve already noticed that it is changing my mindset. Spiritually and intellectually yes, but I’m not going to sprawl all that out here right now. I’m talking about in a broader sense, the more focused feeling that comes with having a new direction.

The past few years have been hard for me. I have been a newspaper journalist since December of 1989, and except for a brief foray into public relations, it’s all I’ve ever done. My crisis came when my industry, the one I’d fully expected to retire from someday (preferably from the New York Times or the Washington Post) started to change in ways I couldn’t adapt to. It seemed to me I became a relic overnight, a stranger in my own hometown, Miss Havisham with an AP Stylebook clutched to my chest and newsprint smudges on my dress. What happened I am still not quite sure, and that’s not what matters now.

What matters is that I spent the past few years just kind of drifting. Floating. Bumping into things without attaching myself to anything, and at my age, that’s not where I wanted to be. I’m an attacher, not a bumper. I did find some sense of home, did some creative nesting if you will, in writing books. I’ve also continued to do some freelance journalism, but it still didn’t feel like enough. I applied to Columbia University’s graduate school of journalism, thinking a master’s degree in my chosen field might ignite the spark again. But even when I got accepted, it didn’t feel right. Walking away from that opportunity felt like finally breaking off that relationship with someone you still love but you know isn’t right for you. It sucked and I can’t pretend it didn’t.

That’s the point where I started to sink. I didn’t know who I was, where I was, or where I was going. I love writing books but there was an underlying current of discontent (and, you know, poverty) in just doing that. When I still had the boundless energy of my mid 20s, I used to talk about how I wanted to get involved, to give back, to change the world. I wanted my life to matter, not just to me but to everyone I touched. But now I’m 46 and that’s pretty old to be starting something new.

When I realized I was living in a big old vacuum of self-pity is when I stopped. I just stopped everything I was doing – the grumbling, the bumping, the whining, the glowering – and I started to listen.

And that’s when the little voice in my head pointed me toward seminary, and into ministry in some fashion. I have gotten mixed reviews from people in my life about my decision. Most have been overwhelmingly and enthusiastically supportive. A few have pulled back from me a bit, apparently thinking I’m going to … I don’t know exactly. Become a televangelist or a nun or something. Still others, some I least expected, have sidled up to me and quietly asked me to pray for them.

The fact is, I don’t know where I’m going with this. I’m a week into seminary right now with three years ahead of me before I’m granted the title of Master of Divinity and become ordained. I expect over the coming months and years, my specific direction will become clear, although I can tell you with absolute certainty that neither “televangelist” nor “nun” made the short list as I am exceedingly unqualified for either. I may end up in the pulpit, yes. Or I may end up teaching. Or working for a social cause somewhere. As I told a friend, as long as the world realizes what they’re getting with me is less Mother Teresa and more Anne Lamott, everything will be fine.

There are so many directions this could take me, and although I don’t have any concrete answers yet, now I’m okay with not knowing. Because now I know I’m on the right path. I took a leap of faith in every sense of the word when I started down this road and I’ve never felt more sure of anything.

My spiritual friends are cheering. My skeptical friends are skepting. My writer friends are simultaneously fascinated and worried that I won’t be writing anymore (spoiler alert: I’ll always be writing). And while I appreciate the support and understand the surprise, what it comes down to for me is that I have been snatched back from the brink of a full-blown midlife meltdown by something bigger than me. I feel rejuvenated, my sense of purpose is back. I feel like a kid again, like I can change the world after all – only better than I could have before, because now I’m 46 and that kicks ass.

Ashokan Reservoir, New York

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