Finding Soul-itude

I don't spend a lot of time alone.

Even times that I should be alone, like in the bathroom, I don't have much solitude because just on the other side of our old wooden door is either our dog or a son having a barely audible, one-sided conversation with me about Minecraft.

I recall a time when I felt alone a lot.

I was living in one of the largest cities in the country, and I had never felt more lonely.

I had plenty of friends. But as I drove home from my acting class in Hollywood to my apartment in West Los Angeles, I remember having an overwhelming sense of isolation.

Despite having plenty of connections, I didn't feel like I was actually connecting with anyone.

Now, 18 years later, my only solitude is found between dropping the boys off at various social and extracurricular events, and usually, it is brief.

My minivan is my sanctuary.

It's climate-controlled, kind of echo-y, has the best music, and it is the place where I can let everything out.

For as many times as the odometer has clicked a new number, I have prayed, worried, sang, laughed, or pulled over to cry.

I have had deep, hands-free phone conversations while in the Target parking lot, which probably made me look crazy.

I have taken cat naps.

I have asked questions and expected to hear the answers.

When you're busy, you have to find meditation wherever you can get it.

Last week, I was on the cusp of what felt like a big decision in my life.

I had finished a particularly challenging workout. The sun hadn't quite come up yet, and I found myself pulled over next to the river.

I opened the sunroof and turned off the engine.

It is not a secret that I'm a very artistic person. I have come to realize I see things through a more colorful lens than your average person.

With that in mind, I will continue.

I looked over at the hospital.

I was born there.

My siblings were born there.

All four of my sons took their first breaths there.

Even the two souls that never did were born there.

Every single school day, my dad and I would drive past on the way to school. Every day, my mom and I would drive past on the way home.

I can almost feel every joy, pain, anxiety, and happiness that I have felt throughout my life when I look at that building.

I still pass the hospital every single day, and it still catches my attention.

It's like passing an old friend, one who doesn't say much but observes everything and knows a lot more about you than you think they do.

As I sat there contemplating a change in my life, I turned to the hospital, almost expecting an answer.

Sometimes I think listening is the most powerful tool I have.

Even when the answer doesn't come in words.

When I was lonely, it was because I was trying to conform to someone I wasn't.

I was on a mission to hide who I was, trying to please someone else, to be liked by people who weren't my friends.

In the process of trying to go from a size 4 to a 2 to a 0, I wasn't just physically shrinking.

My true self was disappearing too.

I couldn't even be alone because if I sat really still, I had to listen to the voice that knew my authenticity had been seriously compromised.

I'm not one to shy away from an argument, even with myself.

The truth came to me in a really dark moment.

I had been out with friends for about an hour when I was drugged.

Thankfully, they recognized what was happening and got me to safety.

To be out with friends one moment and wake up 12 hours later with no recollection of how I had gotten there was incredibly scary.

I was home, in my little apartment bathtub, which is confusing as it is, but at least I was home.

(In hindsight, I wish they would have left a note.)

But at least they got me there.

After I stopped being sick and was lying in my own bed, in my own pajamas, I took an inventory of every inch of my body, asking myself how I had gotten there.

Both literally and figuratively.

And while taking inventory, I realized something that scared me almost as much as the night itself.

I had spent so much time trying to become who I thought other people wanted me to be that I had stopped listening to myself.

I had been shrinking myself physically, emotionally, and figuratively, trying to fit into someone else's idea of who I should be.

And now, lying alone in my bed, I had to ask myself:

Where the hell was I?

Not where was my body.

I knew where that was.

Where was I?

I had spent so much time listening to everyone else that I had forgotten what my own voice sounded like.

And when I took inventory of my soul, I realized it wasn't intact.

Not at all.

So I listened.

Really listened.

And for the first time in a long time, I didn't try to argue with what I heard.

I even took a break from L.A. for a few days to find me again.

Sometimes you need solitude to allow your soul to give you the answer it has been trying to give you the entire time.

I'm not saying being drugged by a stranger is ever a good thing. It wasn't.

But for me, it became a dangerous wake-up call.

I had been looking everywhere else for answers—at other people, at their opinions, at what they wanted from me.

I needed to stop.

Stop searching outward.

And start listening inward.

A few weeks later, I met Don.

A few years later, we returned to my hometown to raise a family.

And live a stone's throw away from my old hospital.

And now, I find my sanctuary sitting in a van down by the river.

I got my answer that day.

But only after I truly stopped.

Stopped my body and my racing mind.

Stopped scrolling and lifted my focus away from my phone, away from the worry of what other people were thinking.

And I took a sharp turn inward.

How amazing to give yourself the gift of solitude in a crazy, busy world.

A splendid moment of isolation can be more restorative than any conversation could be.

And when you quiet the noise, you can finally find your voice.

Ripped

My dad would take me to school every morning on his way to the office, and as soon as he was out of eyesight, I would roll.

I mean, roll and roll and roll the top of my skirt until it was about mid-thigh.

The dress code for skirt length at my Catholic high school was fingertip length. My skirt wasn't that long to begin with.

Unfortunately, I had to walk by the office for my second class, and just when I thought I was in the free zone, I would hear Mrs. Hatfield call out, "Miss Gunn, please come back here."

She would ask me to put my arms down to inspect the length of my skirt. Before I would do this, I would shrug my shoulders up to my ears in an effort to fool her.

I tried to explain that I was genetically predisposed to extremely long arms, and even longer fingers, and that this rule wasn't fair.

I received a warning, but as the years went on, I would be forced to wear the school "pants," which were hideous corduroy bell bottoms.

I wore them so many times that when I graduated, Mrs. Hatfield told me I could keep them as a commencement gift.

My husband went to an all-boys military boarding school, so I can't imagine he was much of a fashion rebel unless you count letting his shoes lose their shine.

I share this because right now, I have a teen who is the same age.

Fifteen years ago, I remember his birth. Specifically, I remember asking—pleading—for an epidural.

Which makes me think epidurals are wasted on the birth. They should be offered for the teen years.

It would make it a lot less painful for me.

I'm kidding.

Sort of.

It is not physically painful. More emotional.

A friend of mine told me that he doesn't give a flying f*ck what his son wears to school.

But the thing is, I do.

I give a lot of flying f*cks about it.

If you are my friend, you know this because I have talked about it with anyone who will listen.

Since my friends are all busy now, I have to write about it. And since you are reading this, you are going to have to be subjected to it too.

My son has recently taken an interest in his personal style.

Up until this point, I have had the privilege to dictate what my boys wear.

I enjoy this.

Every morning, I would lay their clothes out.

I would describe my boy style as East Coast casual with a hint of West Coast edge.

Or professorial kid-chic.

The truth is, the boys didn't care what they wore as long as it was easy to put on and wasn't uncomfortable.

I was also hoping to influence their little boy minds so that when they were adults, they would know that plaid doesn't look right with stripes.

So now I have a boy who wears ripped jeans and jean jackets.

He looks like Zach Morris if Zach Morris would have been mugged on the way home from the Max.

Or, as a friend pointed out, he looks like Donny Wahlberg from NKOTB circa 1989.

Another friend of mine was much more flattering.

She just came back from an Italian vacation and said that he looks very European.

Being a control freak, it takes all I have not to take these ripped jeans and send them to the European boys.

I thought long and hard, and probably too long, about this.

Why does it bother me so much?

Why do I have a guttural reaction whenever I see his knees through his pants?

I don't have the same reaction when he wears shorts.

After discussing it over drinks with yet another friend, I had an A-ha moment.

I'm using my children as mini representatives of me.

I'm worried that anyone who sees one of them walking around with ripped clothes is going to have some opinion about me and my lack of parenting.

That ripped jeans are the universal sign of neglect.

That ripped jeans are a red flag of my ability to control our family's image.

That ripped jeans scream horrific fashion sense, and I cannot deal with it.

The truth is, this isn't just about clothing.

I think parents do this all the time.

For example, you might be hesitant to tell a fellow parent that your child is not interested in going to college, but instead wants to go to a trade school.

Because that ultimately says your child won't have a college degree.

"Then why did you spend all that money on tutors, SAT classes, and after-school activities?" they may ask.

What will they end up doing with their lives? they may wonder.

And then the questions will be pointed at you.

Why didn't you force them to apply to college?

It turns into a parental issue and has nothing to do with what is right for the child.

My friend pointed out that my son is an amazing young man.

He has empathy for animals and little kids (other than his brothers, that is an entirely different blog post).

He is creative and thoughtful and very funny.

He loves spending time with his grandparents on Sunday afternoons.

He has more friends than I can count.

He sends me texts telling me to have a good day at work.

No amount of ripped, faded jeans is going to change that.

The reason I wore short skirts in high school wasn't that I was trying to be provocative.

It was because it was the style.

It was also because I played soccer, and my mom had told me that I had beautiful legs.

Can you imagine if she would have told me the opposite?

That I had ugly legs?

A parent's reaction to their child's attempt to express themselves could leave a lasting impression.

Do I want it to be a positive or negative one?

I have decided to let these ripped jeans go.

If this style makes him feel good about himself, then who am I to tear him down?

Pun intended.

I have spent the better half of his life preparing him to be strong and have his own opinions.

I guess I just thought that his opinions would be more in line with mine.

Parenting mistake #501.

I'm not going to love him any less if his opinions just happen to be different than mine.