Written July 16, 2020

I have spent the majority of the last two years in a complete brain fog… they call it widows fog. My fog however goes deeper much deeper than that… a fog to block out the pain I have endured for years and years. A pain like a sucker punch deep within your stomach, so intense that you find it easier to live in a fog to numb the pain to forget the realities around you.

As many do in these most recent years, I have separated myself from reality by spending mindless hours binge watching anything that could hold my attention. This is the irony… I needed to escape from the pain yet I struggled with anything keeping my attention… and the fog ensued. I could go days or even minutes and not remember a thing I had done days or minutes before. Almost like the experiences, the thoughts, the feelings had been erased, eradicated from my memory. I worked so hard to be in the present yet I wondered if focusing so hard on the present kept me from cataloging that present experience in my memory.

On one of the streaming services, embarrassing to admit the empty hours spent staring at the screen, I saw a trailer for a new show, called Little Fires Everywhere. It dawned on me that this was created from the book I had on my nightstand for almost two years. The book was sent by a sorority sister when my life had been completely turned upside down. I had tried to read it when I received it, but like with most things I couldn’t stay focused. Now anyone that knows about me and my relationship with books, knows that my rule is that you have to read the book before you watch the show or movie. In hindsight, I guess this trailer was telling me it was time. Time to open a book again (I used to love to read… or I used to love being taken away from my realities and being part of someone else’s story). So, I opened the book. I carried it with me downstairs each day and tried, really tried to stay focused by reading a bit every day. It took a while to finish.

The story on the surface had absolutely no relation to my life, except for where it took place in Cleveland, Ohio. I had lived there for three years, part of my other life. 

As I finished the book, which I could not put down for the last 50 pages… another irony as I still struggle with staying focused, I began to cry. I realized that this completion of simply reading a book for enjoyment was a bridge. A bridge leading me away from the realities of my past to the bright and open road ahead of me to a new future. 

The last few months I have been cleaning out each space of my home. Purging or boxing up my old life to create a new one. The first thing I did was add books that had meaning to me to our main bathroom. I was in a coffee shop once and in the bathroom they had bookshelves lined with books, mostly old editions. I never forgot the feeling of being surrounded by those books. I was determined that someday I would create something similar with my own flair. 

I have always kept myself surrounded by books. I felt strongly raising my children surrounded by books. I knew deep down from a young age the escape that I felt by reading. I always prided myself on reading 65 books the summer that I was 11. But it wasn’t until I came to the end of this book, not a book containing any profound meaning, that I realized the impact that books have had in my life. 

Books as a child entertained me, kept me company as I was basically an only child and allowed me to see myself in a story other than my own. As I got older, I read tons and tons of self help books, books regarding different medical challenges my family faced and I always loved books that had great quotes that resonated with me. My children grew, as did the books I read relating to them. There were pregnancy books, parenting books, board books, and picture books. Then, I taught each of my children to read and surrounded them with hundreds and hundreds of books. When they started reading chapter books, I read them too so I could experience their world in the books that they enjoyed. Of course, always instilling the rule of: you must read the book before you watch the movie. 

It was no surprise when I started to display those meaningful books on the bathroom shelves that I included books from my childhood, books from my children’s childhood, parenting books, quote books, and even dictionaries from 3 generations of my family. When I enter this room, I know its the bathroom, but I am surrounded by words and thoughts that have a greater meaning to me. I am surrounded by ideas, stories and meanings that give me joy.

It is no wonder that as I was finishing this book, I started to cry. As I have finally been working on taking back my life, figuring out who I am and who I want to be, and creating a space full of positive energy and joys, I realize the importance that this one book has on my transformation. I have been holding onto the dream of one day writing my own book with my own story, with my own lessons learned and with the hope of one day being able to help someone else on a path in which I had to figure out how to survive on my own. 

This book did in fact hold a deeper meaning that related to me. Little fires everywhere, hasn’t that been most of my life, figuring out how to survive the little fires that have popped up. In the end, trying to figure out how to break free from all of the fire, all of the pain and heartache, was exactly the crossroad that I am at in my life. 

As I picked up the card my sorority sister sent me with the book, I thought I would just find a cordial, “enjoy this book”. My fog kept me from remembering what the card really said. Honestly, even when I read it so many months ago, it would not have had the impact that it does now.

The front of the card had a poem that caused more tears to flow, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

The tears just won’t stop when I read this over and over. In trying to find myself, figure out who I am and who I want to be, this is me. This is the me that I have not been able to be for over 40 years, but yet the person I want to be. This is the person that I strive to be when I work each day to be my best self. This is the impact that I want to have on those in my life and those I will meet. 

As if this weren’t enough to give me pause, the quote inside from my sweet sorority sister, shook me, “remember there are angels everywhere”. Without even knowing it, she had become one of those angels.

Sometimes in life something appears out of nowhere, and at first glance you do not understand the depth or the impact that it will have on you. Who would have thought that a kind gesture from a friend, with little note tucked inside, and a fictional story would be so profound. This book made me cry, ugly cry, but not because I was sad or even again feeling the pain of my past experiences, but rather because I am here, I am present, I am taking control and I am creating a me that is strong. Even with all of my doubts and fears and my ability to downplay my strengths, I have survived and I will continue to survive. I am able to cross over that bridge to a new life and a new me, hopefully no longer carrying the pain but rather the experiences that from even the deepest darkest places have led me to be a light illuminating my path and the paths of those around me.  

The book, Little Fires Everywhere, with the note tucked inside now resides on the shelf in our main bathroom.