It's Life, Lauren

Written 1.26.18

"So how's the week been?" Terry asks as she walks over to me, light-blue sweater, pink turtle neck, thin-rimmed glasses and smile splashed across her face. Her short gray hair a bit disheveled after the class we just took. She is just so adorable, I thought to myself. I hope to be as happy as she is at her age. I didn't want to share with her all the turmoil I had put myself through this week, I dared to put it lightly. "It's been a rough week actually. You know the first week back is always exciting and new, revisiting, coming back..." "Then it's Reality, boom!" She says again with a chuckle, and an eye-thinning, heart-warming smile. I really didn't want to spread any gloom but she seemed receptive to hearing the truth. "Yea, exactly. I've been back for two weeks now and I feel like it's time for me to have everything in order, you know? Like have a job, be making money, have it all figured out." "Well, you've just come back from a really wonderful, life-changing experience and that is not easy to adjust from. You've left Spain, you've left the Camino..." I wondered how she remembered so much, so many details of my life, and I remember we shared such a lovely conversation last week at the library after I shared with the class that I had just returned from my walk. She used my name, Lauren, and spoke in a soft, slow voice. "Take your time, there is no hurry, be patient with yourself."

I went on to share with Terry other details of the transition and how it was seeming so challenging to me, to be back at this place that I have been before physically and emotionally and thinking that I wouldn't experience it again. She shared an anecdote with me.

A few weeks ago she had a visitor, Federico, I am assuming from Spain as she shared with me her passion for it, being a retired Spanish-language teacher, and all of the connections she still maintains there. Before his visit, she was busy running around cleaning the house, getting things prepared, buying food, planning everything, and just after he left, she became sick and took a whole week to recover. Stress. She was describing all of it to the teacher one day after class and she recommended Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart and asked a series of questions. Do you think he knows how much stress you are under? There is no way he could understand because he is so much younger than you, in a different state of mind, and most importantly, because you did not share it with him. If you do not communicate your feelings with him, how do you expect him to know or understand?

Terry added to this that Federico and his sister visited two years ago, and she was even more exhausted after that trip. "His sister just loved to shop and shop and shop. And it's not that I wouldn't have gone with her, but it was just too much, and I'm too old, and I got tired. But because I never said anything to her, she didn't know." She went on, "So I am telling you this, Lauren, because I am seventy-seven years old and this is a journey. This is life. It's dipping your toe in, feeling it, giving it a try. It's not always going to be or to turn out as you thought but it's mostly just giving it a try and doing your best. It is a process." I started crying. She stood there before me with a huge smile on her face. "It's okay, Lauren, you are going through a lot."

I though to myself, how could she be smiling so widely when there is so much pain? How does she after all of these years and all of the things she must have felt and continues to feel, be there smiling? I just couldn't grasp it at that moment. And then I remember, she is alive. She is breathing. She is here to tell me this story. For that she is thankful. This is life.