Life in the night sky

What is that effect where you can see a dim cluster of stars more clearly when you aren't looking directly at them? JBL and I were sitting on the deck on an unusually warm spring evening, and while spying the constellation Orion, I noted just such a group of stars. They were barely visible until I looked away. Why is that?
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Last week I had the misfortune of sitting in an Enterprise storefront. Mike, the 'sales manager' helping me, kept a bright expression on his face as we ran through the mind-numbing process of renting a Hyundai Accent. "Will your insurance company be covering this, or someone else's...?" Uh, that would be mine. My garage door, which crushed my SUV's open back hatch as I backed into it, does not have insurance after all. My face was pinched in a grimace, but Mike's? Nope, his smile never wavered.

As he typed away, I noticed he didn't have a wrinkle on his face. No laugh lines. No frown lines. His forehead, under a shock of non-thinning hair, was perfectly smooth. And he was completely unaware. I glanced around the dingy office, noting the stains on the carpet, the desks with scrapes and gouges in their veneered surfaces, and a cheerful poster exclaiming that Enterprise is a proud sponsor of the Professional Bull Riders Association of America.

I wondered if Mike had that same feeling I did when I was 23 - that I wished I could skip all the experience-getting part of being a young adult. You can't really consider yourself an independent grown-up until you have some work and life experience under your belt, and after having slogged through school it occurs to you that you haven't even come close to paying your dues. Reality can be quite disappointing.

So you work thankless jobs for a pittance and hope the promise of advancement and benefits will come to fruition, eventually allowing you to cover rent without roommates, or even to save a little in case your beat-up Toyota Corolla breaks down in the next year. Of course, the budget for beer must be maintained.

Poor Mike.
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You go through life and become surprised at how you get from point A to point B. At least I am surprised. But then again, most of my waking hours have seemed a blur to me, with a few notable exceptions. Wasn't it just last week that my brother was assuring me I'd be able to afford my first mortgage, with a monthly payment almost twice what I'd been paying in rent? Wasn't it yesterday that I told my boss I was pregnant, and wasn't sure whether I would come back to work after maternity leave (though in my heart I was fairly sure that I would not)? How can it be time to put away the Easter decorations when I feel like last summer wasn't really that long ago?

When I look closely at my life, I see household chores and work and childcare logistics. I see bills and plans for the future and a social calendar that is agreeably bustling and full. I see menu ideas and birthday ideas and running goals. I experience days when I am joy-filled and energy-filled and hopeful. I experience days of crushing sadness and vortexes of negative thoughts when all I want to do is sleep.

But when I look away from my life I realize that I am forty. I see that I have taken deliberate steps in my career and school choices so that I could live a life of challenge and independence. I note that I have let passion guide me and have had the incredible fortune of finding my true soul mate. I can almost forgive myself for my internal struggles, but no amount of focus - indirect or otherwise - can quite get me there.

When I look away I am nervous about the fact that half my life is gone (if I am lucky). When I look away I see that although I have attained all the experiences that make me a bona-fide grown-up (hello layoffs and divorce and home ownership and parenthood!), it's still amazing to me that can get through a day without killing my houseplants. And even though my therapist doesn't believe me, I know I am not alone in feeling this way.

So I will go back to looking straight at my life and living it, but still feeling like I can't quite absorb it for what it is. As long as it continues to involve mysteries and stars and passion, well, I think I'll be able to hang with it just a while longer.

Updated: 4/15 - today is making me feel like I might not make it. Hope I can hold on.