What It Takes to Make Big Sweeping Changes in Your Life, Part 2

Teal and I at Tartine, her favorite bakery in San Francisco on her 22nd birthday.

(See my previous post, Part 1, for the beginning of this story.)

I arrived in my new life in San Francisco with a bang. Within six weeks, I was set to lead a large event at a local hotel with my new business partner Jeffrey, a local gay man. Feverishly I leapt in, feet first.

It didn’t occur to me that I might need time to settle in, process or even unpack. Not for this workaholic. I was all systems go-go-GO! And I was determined to make up for lost time on all fronts, including my burgeoning lesbianism.

So in between tossing my belongings in closets and chucking boxes, I registered to vote in California and went shopping for furniture. I also had my hair cut and dyed for the first time, and bought a brand new wardrobe under the advice of a professional stylist. And I signed up for lesbian events like “Wine Time”, and even went on some hikes with the local gay Sierrans.

This was Suzanne 3.0 and I was like a kid in a candy shop.

I had a wonderful new two bedroom apartment with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge in one direction and the Bay Bridge in the other. My daughter Teal had come to San Francisco as well, giving me a much needed anchor while she stayed in the guest room.

I looked around me giddily, barely able to believe my luck.

Then two weeks later…my teeth began to fall apart. Within the space of a few days I had to have two emergency root canals. And so, without warning, I was stopped in my tracks.

Of course something had to give. I’d just left my marriage of 25 years. And my 16-year-old son Luke had just left to spend a year in Taiwan as a high school exchange student. This transition for all of us had been arranged months earlier, yet that made it no easier. There was a deep, indelible fissure, no matter how amicable this divorce was going to be. Like it or not,  a whole part of my life, my identity had just ended.

But I literally could not get myself to stop and think about all that was happening to me. Instead, I just kept on go-go-GOING. And so, inevitably, I began to fall apart.

First lesson in a new life: Sometimes you actually must stop to feel your feelings, whether you like it or not.

Long story short, the new business partnership took off and I found myself busier than ever. At the same time, I began frenetically dating women here and there, none of whom was a right fit. Predictably, I found myself unoccupied on a Saturday night…and that’s when the grief finally tiptoed in.

That night I lay on my couch for about three hours and cried. Then I rose up and insisted I’d gotten through most of it. Defiantly, I slapped my profile on Okay Cupid, and hours later I had a date. Of course, I hadn’t even touched the surface of my grief—but I didn’t know this yet.

That took fourteen months of being involved with the first woman who responded to my profile. She happened to be a malignant narcissist. By the time my impulsive romance was over, my gears had been completely stripped. My fast-growing business had closed due to burnout. I’d also given up my great little apartment  to follow my lover to Marin County. I lived there for two months before she broke up with me.

In short order, all the structures I’d built collapsed, and I found myself wandering around, trying to figure out where to live. That’s what I was doing when my daughter Teal suddenly died as well from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest. Immediately I was plunged into shock.

In just a few short months, the dream had imploded and now I had nothing left but indelible grief, utter aloneness and a very sad story.

Finally, I was forced to stop.

Yet, here is the magical part, for this is when I began to grow up. What better teacher is there than the removal of all we’d previously known, especially when it’s not all that functional?

Now all of my old structures were utterly gone. My life suddenly was divided into Before Teal’s Death and After Teal’s Death. I didn’t work for more than 18 months. Instead, I grieved and focused on self-care, something I’d never even considered. And I I lived frugally in a friend’s guest room, while I saved what money I had.

During this time, I got comfortable with the unknown, and began to focus more and more on the present In the shadow of Teal’s death, I worked hard to heal the many broken parts that had finally been laid bare by the collapse of my new life. Finally I could see them… and there were a lot.

Slowly, I began to rebuild. I reverted to my maiden name and got a California license, as I committed fully to this new state I’d moved to. I swam every day, journaled my heart out and read an entire library of self-help books. I also got extensive therapy and did 12 Step Work on the addiction in my family’s past.

My full emergence didn’t happen for three years, at which point I moved in with the woman I am now married to. And so began an entirely new body of work—and life—that continue to give me great joy.

This is, indeed, the life I’d dreamt of when I left my tiny town in Upstate New York.

All of this is to say that ripping up an old life and beginning a new one is not to be taken lightly. And yet, this can be the catalyst that is needed, as long as you fasten your seat belt and prepare for a potentially bumpy ride.

Consciousness and support along the way are advisable—two things I could have had far more of at certain critical junctures. And yet, each person I encountered taught me so very much, and for this I am grateful.

My these two blogs light any embers that are burning in your heart.

Why hold back? Why not head straight for the joy, just ahead?

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