Truth & Consequences

Excerpt from April '08:

So, I have this rash. [...]

Remember that Dharma & Greg episode from Season two when Dharma gets fed up with parking meters and decides to run for office? She tries to go about it all democratically and honestly, like a peaceful flower child, but winds up turning to the political dark side as she gets caught up in winning the race, and her physical body is outraged (outbreak, swelling, cold, etc.)?

That's how I feel. It has spread over my arms, unannounced but ever present. Itchy and annoying.

I'm in the car, and I just read the first line of Eat, Pray, Love: "Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Tell the truth."

This has evoked enough tears to start a new lake. The rest of the book, at least by chapter 2, I'm kind of a mess in the passenger side. There's nothing like reading a book and feeling like you're living through an abridged version.

What's a girl to do when she has everything she needs by outside standards -- but still isn't happy? Isn't filling her soul? Isn't giving that inner voice of intuition and gut the volume it it's asking for? You can only silence / shelve the movement of the soul's journey for so long... and then it goes to drastic measures to tell the rest of you what needs to happen. Stat.

Hence, my rash.

At this point, I don't want to be married anymore. Not feelin it. And that's scary to say outloud.

We've embarked on a road trip that's got the mild literal and metaphorical flavor of a homecoming, tracing places and themes from our old story: A cousin's wedding and all the family, a visit with dad and a dear source of deep belly laughs, a visit to the idyllic lake cabin - a place of initiation 6 years ago almost to the date (and perhaps a crucial turning point that leads directly to where I am now, if I track back far enough. In the words of Celine, It's all coming back to me now.), some brotherly love and the other half of the relatives in the uppermost upper Midwest. All totalled: a week plus, of whirlwind stops and connections before we load up and continue on the next scheduled leg of the trip, with the fluffy dog in tow.

...And, an awkward space between us until the long ride home, when seemingly everything -- every raw, honest thought at that moment -- came out. It was liberating. I felt lighter. And my rash was gone.