Sunday, September 27, 2020

The List of Missing Rituals

 

A list of things I would like rituals for: 

--- The passage from not-parent to parent, which is almost always framed as joyful, and which socially does not leave a lot of room to feel uncertain, afraid, or mournful of the loss of a previous self, which were all feelings I felt, and then subsequently felt very lonely about.

--- The loss of an ideal, like when I had to admit that, no, in fact I was not going to be co-sleeping with my baby, and my baby was not going to be eating swiss chard omelettes, and I was not going to be one of those relaxed moms who have effortless wavy hair and lost all the baby weight by "chasing the kids around;" I was going to be a high-strung disaster who put her newborn on a kitchen scale to see if he was getting enough milk and whose pants sizes never came down again.

--- The end of a friendship by fast means: a breakup, in which one or both parties decides that the friendship is too broken to be repaired, and suddenly the history you shared is actually history.

--- The end of a friendship by slow means, in which one or both parties drift apart but there's probably something still there, we'll get back to it one day, until suddenly, you're at her wedding and realize, as her besties are walking her the altar, that you are no longer a bestie.

--- The end of a friendship group, as its members drift apart or move away or the in-fighting gets to be too much, and suddenly, webs that seemed unbreakable (dorm living! camp!) have dissolved into mere threads.

--- The end of a love affair, marriage or otherwise, in which the heartbreak outweighs the good stuff, and parting is the only way to reckon with it. The feelings of anger or sadness, betrayal and nostalgia, relief and sorrow, all mixed together into one pot we call "a breakup" or "a divorce," and which can linger for years, flavouring every subsequent relationship because we never drained that pot. 

--- The thing that almost happens but doesn't: the near-death experience, the abortion, the remission from cancer. How to grieve the thing that happens in your heart but not in the world? How to grieve the person who is still here but irrevocably changed? How to love ourselves when it is us? 

--- The keeping of a secret. Write it down, put it in a jar, bury it under a still-growing tree, tell no one, tell yourself under the protection of the sound of the shower, scream it underwater, the only evidence of your telling is bubbles of nothing rising to the surface and disappearing. 

--- The shift from guest at Thanksgiving dinner to host; that is, from child to adult, from younger to middle or older generation, from someone who can barely be trusted to buy the ice cream to someone who can coordinate four generations, six dishes, seating for 23, and do it all in a clean house. The first time I hosted Christmas dinner, I felt like the police were going to break my door down and arrest me as an imposter (I served fish). 

--- The slowing down of the healing process; when your clicky ankle becomes bothersome, when your TMJ requires dental surgery, when your baby weight is just...your regular weight. When you realize that some part of you has been sore for years—your back, your knee, your eyes—and that you are actually going to have to intervene with some kind of healing plan if you want it to get better. Your body is not youthful any more. You are going to have to take care of it, or it's going to feel bad.

--- The grief that comes from living in a dying world, on a planet that deserves so much more than how we've treated her. The knowledge that our kids and grandkids will face hurdles we were unable to prevent, that others could have stopped it and didn't.

--- The grief of lost histories: migration, colonization, religious conversion. Tapping into ancient tradition feels impossible when the path of history dead-ends only a few generations back. I, who have been on the lucky side of all those things, still do not know my ancestors. 

--- The decision to stop drinking. Or smoking pot. Or whatever drugs you're doing in a casual (or not-casual) way. 

--- The adoption of a new value. Deciding to stay home or go back to school, to take a vacation instead of burning out, to reach out instead of wallowing in FOMO, to say no instead of endless yesses, to try harder, to stop trying as hard, to shift. To aim for better morals or more fun or improved family life or less anger. The moment you decide to be different. 

--- The first time you grow a tomato from a seed. It goes from this tiny burr to a huge sprawling complex of greenery to fine red globes to a tidy stack of salsa on your counter. It's hard to beat this, as a moment to celebrate.

--- The day you go from being hi-hello acquaintances to being actual friends. Who even knows how this happens—sometimes to process is a thunderbolt, sometimes it's a glacier. Sometimes it's the realization that you've known someone for more than a decade and you still don't know her all the way, but you've got a foot in the door and that feels great. Sometimes it's re-meeting someone after a long stretch apart and suddenly you're on the same frequency for the first time ever.

--- The moment that you fall in love with yourself. No "once I lose ten pounds" or "once I meet The One" or "once I have a new job." Just yourself, in this moment, as you are.

--- The moment you fall in love with someone else—a child, a sibling, a partner, an artist—and the world becomes brighter and funnier and fresher and more boyuant. This is before I say "I love you," when the feeling is just a bit of heart-spark, but it makes the world different.

--- The realization that you've been growing and changing for ages, and those old friends and lovers really don't know you any more. The sadness of having some old version of you floating around, and the gladness that comes from caring for your weird little soul.