The crickets chirped their summer night-song, while the big dipper twinkled above my favorite tree in the yard. It all looked and sounded much the same as it did long ago from that front porch in Aunt Mattie's yard. In fact, if I closed my eyes and just breathed it all in, I could go back to those few but precious happy memories where the world felt uncomplicated and simple. While the setting felt familiar, though, so many things had changed. And this morning I woke full of nostalgic thoughts of the milestones from my past that have helped create this point in time in my life that I now call home. Thirty years ago today I'd just graduated from high school and was wrapping up the last minute details for my upcoming wedding in nineteen days, an image from the movie Labyrinth the guiding inspiration for what I just knew was going to be a fairy tale event. I was standing on the cusp of eighteen, my pending birthday merely a stepping stone to get me where I wanted to go...a place where I could finally get started on putting my world "right". For most of my childhood, one constant mantra at the forefront of my mind was to disappear as much as possible from my surroundings, making myself invisible so as to not be any more of a target to those predators around me until I was old enough to build a life where I actually belonged, where I was in control over my fate (figuring I couldn't do any worse than the adults who were supposed to be responsible for me), and where I could ensure my own safety. Actually, back then I pinned my hopes on the fact that the boy I was about to marry would save me...a foolish, childlike notion that I allow because at that time I was still a child. It's really strange to look back now, attempting to put myself into those long-ago shoes, and realize that for so long all I'd really wanted was to be saved. And knowing that in the end, I'd have to be the one to save myself. Seventeen-year-old me would have been terrified at this hard reality.

I remember one of the last in-depth conversations I had with my father. He said, "Things haven't gone the way I planned for me," his disgust at this evident in his voice. It has stuck with me because the more I think on it, the more absurd it becomes. I'm fairly certain I have never met another soul whose life has gone "as planned". Hell, if I had given up when that future I'd been so meticulously planning at the ripe old age of seventeen completely imploded, I would have spent most of my adult life wallowing in defeat. I am truly grateful that I learned early almost nothing is ever going to go as planned (I do believe I'm on about Plan Q at this point). In fact, most of the time you'll have to adjust that "plan" of yours at least a dozen times before you get back to a place of smooth sailing (which, of course, only lasts until the next snafu the Universe throws at you). And not only do those plans change, but we do, too (unless we're stubborn ol' mountain men who adamantly refuse).

If I could go back and whisper into the ear of that child I once was, I'd tell her, "Save yourself, little one. Don't wait for someone else to do it, and don't for one moment think you can't do it. You can. You will. Don't be afraid." I'd say this to her because it took far too long for it to sink into my stubborn brain. It wasn't until I was firmly seated in my forties that I became completely convinced of the fact that I could save myself. And somewhere along the way, I did without even realizing that's what I was doing. When I look back now, I know with utmost certainty I was the only one who could have done it. It may have been messy and somewhat convoluted, at times, but I got there!

I am days away from my forty-eighth birthday. My thirty year class reunion happens in September. And my thirty year wedding anniversary is fast approaching. I am not the woman I was when all of this adulting part of my life began. In fact, if you'd told that younger version of myself that this version of me was even possible, I would have laughed and laughed as if you had suggested we were all just a part of some alien's dream. It makes me smile to know that much of what I've accomplished would have been equally astonishing and sound impossible to my seventeen-year-old self. And yet, here I am. I don't know what's up ahead for me, but I am finally confident that whatever it is, I will adjust as needed, survive the storms, and be standing strong on the other side of this crazy thing we call life.

*On a side-note, watching this video again takes on an entirely new (and poignant) meaning for grown me. It was the inspiration for my wedding of long ago and has some pretty prophetic aspects to it on this side of thirty years.

As I sit here in the quiet, my mind goes back to the three-hundred plus days my father sat, alone in his house in front of his TV and contemplated his fate. Oh, how he hated that time and yet to my mind those were three-hundred missed opportunities to live. Of course it's easy for me to speculate from the sidelines about what I might have done differently had I been in his shoes. The truth is, we all walk our own path, are only responsible for our own choices. And much as it frequently twists me into emotional knots, the harsh reality is we cannot change or control the way in which others choose to love us. That single thought spreads like wildfire in my mind, touching burning embers to other faces of those I've loved who have caused me pain. I wonder at the embers I have caused that scorched others, and that, too, is bittersweet.

We all either fumble in the dark trying to make sense of the world around us, or if we are lucky, have the ability to just take life's madness in stride. As I sat last Saturday night surrounded by people whom my father's life had touched, I searched for peace. My uncle prayed, we ate and listened to exquisite music played by Spencer Scholes, the talented young man that my brother hired to honor my father's memory, and I dug through a hundred memories, a thousand memories, searching for the one I could hold onto as I said goodbye. It struck me, though, that I've been saying goodbye to that ornery old man for my entire life. Where is the finality? Where is closure? I took in every word, every note that floated around the evening breeze, trying to find ones that made sense to me in the face of a lifetime of memories that made absolutely no sense.

I have spent weeks now untangling all of the messes my father left behind, and I'd like to say I've done so with grace. The reality is not as pretty. Although I have always loved my father, I'm angry. Cleaning up his messes makes me angry all over again, as it is the legal metaphor for all of the emotional messes he's left in his wake, frothy bubbles of churning feelings that he was inclined to shove deep down and ignore. I am not hardwired that way, and for that I'm eternally grateful. While it might be easier to pretend like every part of me is just hunky dory, regardless of what life throws my way, I'd much rather feel...deeply, wholly, with reckless abandon. Even when doing so hurts like hell. The world still turns, the fireflies still do their magical dance around my yard on these sultry summer evenings and before long the seasons will change. And eventually, I will find the strength to say that final goodbye to the man who provided the other half of my DNA.