When people ask where I’m from, there’s a fleeting moment of uncertainty when I’m abnormally aware of my hands, standing lost and unsure of myself as I decipher the twists and turns of my path and try to pin down my origins. Eventually I collect myself and answer in one of three vastly different ways, depending on the questioning party. And then I act all nonchalant, pretending that the simple inquiry hasn’t just thrown me off my game.
Here are the three levels of answers to that massively complicated question:
- California. That’s where I was born, although I have no memories of the city I was delivered into. I use this answer when I suspect the person asking really doesn’t care about the answer, or when I’m not yet ready to divulge anything real about myself, but still want to sound somewhat interesting.
- Virginia. That’s much truer than the first answer. I spent my adolescence there and even though I was entirely un-friend-able and painfully disappointing in those early days, I grew up there under the fluttering leaves in the shadows of a giant church near those bygone battlefields. I learned to drive on those old roads flanked by seasonal cornfields innocently adorned with morning glories in the daylight and speckled with incandescent lightning bugs at night. There where daffodils in the margins of those pages and that world smelled of honeysuckles and sadness. It’s where I met my first love and had my heart broken, where I fought for a life I decided I didn’t want, and where I gave up, over and over again until I finally moved away to plant a new and different life. I didn’t know I was depressed back then, and I wouldn’t have known what to do with that information if I’d had it. The truth in this answer makes me worry about my children. I watch them closely for signs that they’re fighting similar battles. I worry and wonder if I’ll have anything useful to offer them in the way of honest armor to ward off the darkness, or tools with which to fight through it.
- Florida. This is my in-the-moment answer, where I separate who I am today from the version of myself that I grew up out of. It’s the place I chose when I’d grown up enough to have a choice. It’s the place where all of my adulting has happened, where my husband became part of my story, and the only place my children have yet called home.
I’ve lived many places, and visited many more. I used to wish so hard that I had solid roots to hold to when the winds of darkness blew, but for all that wishing, I don’t believe I’d be happy tied to one spot that way, no matter how much I admire that sort of life. Whether from my upbringing as a military kid or due to some deeper innate predisposition, I’ll never know, but I’m not a regal oak draped in elegant Spanish moss planted deep in unmovable confidence. I am instead a simple flowering vine, ever expanding, spreading and reaching toward the sun from the shadows, blooming and bedazzling the whimsical path I forge.
It’s an ever changing existence, one that looks so very different than the one I expected to grow. I imagined something more symmetrical and predictable than this. I thought that’s what my happiness would look like. I was wrong, but not about the beauty of it. It’s more breathtaking and vibrant than I knew it could be, and I’m happily surprised by my winding lot in life. I rather like growing this way, seeing the different corners of the world, and gaining from my journey an ever changing perspective on life.
Still, there is pain on this path just like any other. That’s the thing about being a vine. You fall in love quickly with the places and people that help you grow, and your tiny rooted heartstrings tug when you move on, unsure if they will ever again find a place quite as perfect as this one became.
I am easily unhinged, and blown about by changes in the wind and the weight of troubled feels, but I know I’ll put down new ties quickly and climb again, higher and brighter than before. I am weaving a wonderful life out of this tangled mess, and although I am swaying now, I will bloom again in time and there will be new and unexpected growth around that next bend.
I count myself among the luckiest of loosely planted people, because I’ve found beneath the thorns, a few great loves that, having found me crawling along the ground, saw my potential flowers, and decided to lift me up so I could see the burning sun and the stars that wink in the night.
My husband is my oak tree, quiet and wise and full of knowledge and gentle solid strength. I’d never have found my way this far up toward the sky, had it not been for that unbelievable man’s firmly planted roots and his willingness to let me grow in my own winding way.
My best friend is my sunflower, confident and strong, blooming straight toward the sun. She is defiant and kind, not because it’s easy to stand so beautifully tall in this world, but because she was born with a magnificent compass that her fiery heart instinctually follows. Sunflowers always look toward the sun, and even when I can’t see that bright star for myself, I know it must be up there shining just the way I remember, because I can still see the flower that follows it.
I’m surrounded by strength, and I’m stronger because of it. I’ve come so far with the help of so many, and I’ve climbed too long to simply stop here. I haven’t yet deciphered all the reasons for this winding journey, and I don’t know what my contribution ought to be, but I’m slowly learning who I am, or at least who I am not, and for today that is enough.
Climbing quietly and waiting to bloom,
The Glittery Nurse