This is, I think, my favorite picture of myself. It's a self-portrait-- I took it last New Years Day.
I found myself lost last December. As I looked ahead to the New Year, I realized I had completely wandered away from the parts of me that I felt proud of; I had drifted from the essences, from the gumption, from the truth, from the deep-down twinkling. Like a cloud in the sky on a windy day, I had shape-shifted and chased after breezes, leaving wispy vapors where there should have been pictures to name. It's a poetic way to say that I had bought into the idea that many single 20-somethings believe: that I wasn't enough without someone ELSE. And in looking for the "elses," I led my heart out onto ledges, onto tight-ropes, onto rotten bridges. I offered it to sky-divers and shark-feeders-- men that made no promises of safe-keeping. I led it so far away that I'd soon lost track of it completely, and I was hazy eyed. I couldn't see me anymore.
My Dad called me out last Christmas; he said that I wasn't the Greta he knew-- the Greta that knew where she was going, that had dreams, and ambitions, and found jokes all by herself to giggle at. He said, "You seem like a ping pong ball, bouncing back and forth between these GUYS." I pictured myself as the metal ball inside a pinball machine: bouncing, and zinging, and making loud noises, and all the while heading for that clanging pit at the bottom.
Dad was right, and it made me cry. I missed me. I missed God, and I missed ME.
New Years Eve, I went out. I got dressed up in high-heeled boots, and a black dress, and drank wine with some girlfriends and all the while felt frustrated and empty. On a whim, I mentioned to one of them, "I think I'll go for a walk tomorrow. A big walk. I think I'll maybe walk all over the city."
As the night progressed, and I danced, and I watched guys shmooze girls that they didn't know and didn't care about, the idea beckoned more strongly. I would take a walk. A big walk. I would walk all over Seattle. I went to sleep just a few hours into the New Year-- tired, but no longer bleary eyed. I had a plan, and it was the most Greta-like thing I'd had in a long time.
I woke up new.
It took miles to find my way back to me; I walked all day. I got up early, and put on an outfit that was for no one to look at. I wore comfortable tennis shoes, a warm jacket, my blue glasses for LOOKING, and a warm hat which had been a Christmas present from my little brother. I filled a back-pack with essentials, and tucked my camera into my coat-pocket. And I started walking.
I found so many things.
And at one point, I found a No Trespassing sign.
And past the No Trespassing sign, I found a long dock with house-boats on either side. And at the end of the dock I looked across the water to a park I often ride my bike to in the summer-time-- but this time, I was on the other side of the looking glass. I was IN the view I normally gazed at from a distance, and this view was transformed. I was transformed.
And I found a house that perfectly matched the color of my jacket.
And that's when I took my favorite picture of myself.
I like the picture because I didn't take it to be pretty. I like it because my coat matches a house and they are both fabulous raspberry. I like it because my hair is covered up with a hat and my mouth is covered up with my coat, and I like it because even though I covered up my mouth to attain maximum pinkage, you can still tell that I'm grinning. I like it because I could have only taken it after disobeying a rule-- which is a very Greta thing to do-- and because I took it after walking on firm ground for miles and miles, and because I took it after having so many fun conversations with so many strangers, and because I took it after chuckling and congratulating God on his funny, beautiful world all day long. I like it because I took it-- I wasn't asking for anyone else's approval, or validation, or opinion. I like it because it was a silly moment. I like it because I have my glasses on, so I know that I was able to see the world with radiant clarity. And I like that, even with the glasses on, you can see that the twinkling is back.
I woke up that day. It was, and remains, one of the best days of my life.
2008 has been a doozy. No sooner had I gotten a grip on me than circumstances did everything they could to knock me loose again. I have hoped, and hurt, and tried, and failed, and guarded, and exposed. I have been overjoyed, and I have been utterly dismayed. I worried over Grandpa through a health-scare. I entered and exited two different relationships. I swash-buckled my way across Europe with Heidi. I reeled through family distress. I became an aunt for the second time. I started grad school in an effort to realize my dream of being a teacher, and encountered the significant stress entailed. It's been loaded. Several times I've said, "I feel the weakest that I've ever been in my life. I feel crazy right now. I really feel crazy."
But through it all-- through ALL the ups and downs-- it's been ME. I've clutched hold of the dreams I remembered on January 1st of this year. I haven't often FELT as twinkly or giggly or adventurous or delighted as I did in that picture, but I've remembered that that's who I really AM, and that that's the girl I belong to. I've held tight to the closeness with God I felt on that walk, and as the world has crumbled, He has grown in strength and immediacy to compensate.
Tonight the sermon was about hope. I thought, "I could give that sermon." Because, you see, after a year of flirting with soul-marring cynicism, I still am hoping. I'm not writing off men, or love. I'm not writing off family. I'm not writing off ME. After a hard, hard year: I have my head up. I believe in so many things!! I DO, I believe in things! My eyes have cried a lot this year, but damn it, they're clear when they look back at me in the mirror. I still understand the deep-downs. I have been crazy: true. But I have been ME-crazy-- if that makes any sense. In the worst of it, I called people who loved me, and hugged them til the crying stopped, and then we prayed together, and then I was ready to try again.
I feel stronger, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Like-- exhausted. But ready to try again. I mean, not READY. But.
Ready to believe I WILL be ready.
And, as 2009 approaches (she noted with a resilient twinkle in her eye): I'm ready for another New Years walk.
