Why Do I Feel Like This?
“Don’t cry, Mom,” my son said, hugging me outside Terminal 3 Departures. “We’ve done this so many times before.”
He was right, but his words couldn’t help me make sense of the desperation in my throat as I dropped him off at LAX a couple weeks ago to return to college. Nothing was wrong, but somehow everything about his leaving felt wrong.
I couldn’t drive home yet, couldn’t handle the empty bedroom, the quiet kitchen.
I thought of dialing one of my Mom Friends. My phone had been blowing up for days with words that made me know I wasn’t alone: “Ripping the Band-Aid off today…” and “I have one week left with her…” and “Thinking of you as your boy leaves…” and “I send mine off on Wednesday….”
These texts always end in ellipses, our Mom Code: It cannot be over so soon, this wringing of time, this scrambling to pack in tips for grocery shopping and yoga classes, internships and interviews. And always the unnecessary questions: “Did you remember to pack your scarf? Do you have a good beanie?” And always the unspoken words: I will miss you. I do not want you to leave. Will you be okay?
But as I pulled away from the curb, I knew picking up the phone wasn’t the answer. I needed to turn inward to figure out this thing called sadness.
So I exited I-405 for Dockweiler State Beach, a few miles north. There was a pen and blank paper in my backpack (there always is) and an old blanket in the trunk (there always is).
My husband and I used to come to Dockweiler often, before the kids were born, carrying firewood and a bag of marshmallows, maybe some chips. Or at least often enough so that, picking my spot in the sand, I remembered the smoky-salty breeze, the lime green of the Pacific just before it crests over, crashes, reabsorbs. The billowy intensity of jet engines directly overhead, every three minutes. Contrail bursts and shines off the backs of wings, like cloudbursts, when the rays hit just so.
The sun warmed my forearms and soothed the arthritis that has settled into my left knee. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, set my alarm for seven minutes, and began.
I met myself on the page.
I wrote the Worst Junk in all the World (WJAW) as plane after plane banked a thirty-ish degree turn over the ocean and then, poof, disappeared into the waiting blue.
A few days earlier, on a call with his roommate, I overheard my son say, “I’ll be home Sunday.”
“No!” I shouted from the living room. “Not home. THIS IS HOME.” The distinction he failed to make became part of the story that emerged as I kept the pen moving. Forward motion, no cross outs, no judgement.
When I fully “drop in,” this is what it looks like:
12:10 Delta. I don’t know if this is you. 12:19 Delta. Is this you, ahead of schedule? United. Southwest. Unmarked. I am waiting. 12:25 Delta. I don’t know. 1:16 Delta. I know in my bones this is you! You just soared over, and I am texting you.
MESSAGE SEND FAILURE.
I see you I see you I miss you. I still see you. Bye, my boy. I still see you I still see you I can’t see you why can’t I see you anymore why are my ribs and belly and chest exploding why this goodbye why can’t I see you these tears keep coming and the next airplane is United and I cannot see you anymore.
A father and daughter play catch with a yellow rubber ball. If they look over, they will see me crying.They do not know this sadness.They will know this sadness one day.
I feel guilty: much greater sadness exists. But this particular goodbye to you binds me to the sand, knots me up, and I don’t want to apologize for it.
The ink poured out more insights, as it always does.
(The blue highlights are the gems I mined later, the moments I will return to when I want to keep digging.)
In just fifteen minutes—I couldn’t make myself stop when my alarm buzzed—I began to unpack the suitcase of my sadness. I learned things about my relationship to mothering and my sense of self, at middle age, that I never knew I believed. I felt lighter.
When I shook out my blanket and walked back to my car, I passed the last fire pit and saw, as if for the first time, its bright red message etched in concrete:
CAUTION HOT COALS
ALLOW FIRES TO BURN OUT
AFTBO…maybe that’s better than WJAW? Maybe it’s all one.
When you feel sadness or longing or anxiety—whatever it is that’s got you by the tail, solid and unshakeable—I hope you’ll reach for the pen. Here’s your prompt:
Why do I feel so _____________?
If you’re nervous about what might make an appearance on the page, I see you. We all are. But in all my years of teaching, I’ve found that we only write what we are ready for.
It just works. And if you have questions, I’m here for you.
Yours in Writing the Worst Junk in All the World,
