"There and Back Again..."

Two weeks and two days ago, I embarked on a strange journey for this time of pandemic and distrust. I packed up the car and began a six-month road trip. My first two days involved a trip to look at the little trailer park in Clarksville, Tennessee – the trailer that was new-ish when I lived in it now sits with wood covering three windows but in better shape than its neighbors who sit as shells with broken windows and people still living in them. Following that, I drove through the upper rings of one of three major storms/hurricanes that have impacted the east coast – a path through areas where lives were lost including that of 7-month-old babies.

It is hard to name what motivates this trip – part memory, part research, and if being honest, part middle of life accounting that makes me want to heal trauma an thrive in the coming years. Some might call that a midlife crisis, but I agree with Brene Brown. “People may call what happens at midlife “a crisis,” but it’s not. It’s an unraveling – a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re supposed to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.” (Brown, Brene. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are, p. xii)