My father died 20 years ago today (January 19). It’s been a long 20 years, but still, somehow, unproductive. I still miss him. I’m still angry that he died when he did. I’m still adrift in some ways since then.
When he died I was a senior in college about to start my last semester. This is a pivotal point in a person’s life. Especially a person like me who can just sort of, go with the flow. I had no real goals, although I applied to graduate school. (That was one of the last things my father helped me do, get out those applications, edit my essay, help me decide where to apply.) Not really thinking about it. I just thought graduate school would be a safe bet, a continuation of school, which was pretty much all I knew after 16 years. And I’m great at doing what I’m told.
When he died I just floated, not with lightness, but without any sort of grounding. I went through the motions, again without really thinking about what I wanted, whatever was easiest, whatever caused the least stress for everyone. So I went to graduate school. Again with no goal in mind for the education or the degree.
Real goals, things I really really really want to do, rest at the back of my mind, waiting for me to pick them up and do something with them. I never do. Let me restate that: I often let them continue to rest, until they fade away, and I forget them completely. Because as I sit here now, I can’t think of a single real goal from graduate school. Everything I did was along the path of least resistance. Everything I chose required little action from me, little choice. Somehow hoping my stillness would bring great change.
I was left with this wanting, this feeling of incompleteness and joylessness. I wanted more, but not only did I not know how to go after it, I didn’t even how to think of it. I would try something and hope it would magically change my life. At the first sign that it would not, or the changes I would have to make would be too great, I would drop it and move on to something else. I’ve done this with hobbies, sports, cities, people. I’m constantly starting over, beginning again. And I’m a fabulous beginner. I can go from absolutely no knowledge to low intermediate in the time it takes others to figure out how to pronounce the thing. But I leave. I always have.
Yoga will be the challenge to this. I’ve been doing yoga for a year now and I don’t see giving it up any time soon. Just when I think it’s routine and just an exercise, I’ll have to leave a class in a hurry racing to my car before I burst into tears. Holding it in the parking lot. Then safely away at the first stop light, I Sob. Sob for whatever feeling that came up in whatever asana. Sob for my life. Sob for my fatherless family. Sob that I still feel lost after all these years.
