A New Shore

I remember when my friend Matt walked in to the wilderness and never returned. I had just spoken with him a couple of days before his disappearance and his final words to me were, “if I could just figure out my medication.” Matt was generous, smart, passionate, and wickedly funny. I miss him terribly. If only I could go back.

I remember the first time I was in the hospital. I was seven and had a staph infection in my knee, which required two major reconstructive surgeries. The episode left me scarred both literally and figuratively. I still am terrified of needles and to this day, my knee pops and aches from years of scar tissue build up. If only I could go back.

I remember when I skipped a chance to see Pavarotti perform in Vienna so I could go out partying instead. I remember movies before they were just comic book sagas and endless sequels. I remember TV before reality TV, news before it was sensationalized and polarizing, and TV ads before they were mostly drug ads. I remember life before we were plugged in 24/7 and when the Internet was basically just an encyclopedia. If only I could go back.

I remember when I wanted to change my major but I never did - I didn’t study what I loved in college, I studied what I thought I should study. I remember the time I didn’t get into grad school and didn’t try again. I remember when I didn’t start that business, create that curriculum, or write that book. If only I could go back.

I remember the first time I had my heart broken. In junior high I had my first kiss with my first girlfriend and weeks later, she dumped me. I tore up a textbook on the school bus in frustration. Since then I’ve had partnerships fail, an ex-girlfriend die in a mass shooting, and I experienced a gut-wrenching divorce. I’ve learned that broken hearts heal, but you also can’t take back the wrongs. If only I could back.

I remember when I was 22 and Grandpa died. He was just learning what it really meant to love and then, it was over. I sat with my cousin in the hospital hallway and sobbed and sobbed. I yearned to know my real Grandfather. If only I could go back.

I remember the time I didn’t take the job in San Francisco or the one in New Orleans. The time I thought I had found the perfect career, but didn’t get the gig. The time the big promotion didn’t pan out, the time the start-up failed, and the time my favorite job morphed into corporate monotony. I remember last year when I was passed up for what seemed like the perfect position. If only I could go back.

I remember when I was perfectly fit. I remember not feeling my backache every morning. I remember dancing around that boxing ring feeling like I was the champ. If I could be frozen in time physically, I’d choose to live at age 33. If only I could go back.

I remember last year when Dad was sick. As I watched him in his final weeks I was angry that I would never get to see Mom and Dad be that cute and loving elderly couple in their 80’s an 90’s. I felt robbed of that time with Dad living out his golden years. If only I could go back.

I remember life before AIDS, the opioid epidemic, obesity, mass shootings, suicides of despair, political correctness, political gridlock, economic disparity, climate change and the COVID-19 Pandemic. If only I could go back…

There’s been a lot of talk recently about going back, returning to normal, and turning the economy back on. Going to work or school and having routine and structure are important aspects of daily life. But one thing I’ve learned over the years in both success and failure is that no matter how steadfastly we wish to go back or strive to recreate the past, we can never really go back.

Says author Francis Weller, “When we are in the grips of illness, a major focus in our mind is the hope of getting back to where we were before this sickness began. But we are not meant to go back...we must recognize that we have been uprooted by our cancer, our heart attack, or our depression and we have been set down on some new shore. Like any true ritual process, we are meant to come out of the experience deeply changed.”

The truth is we can’t go back and we aren’t meant to. Not when you face a life-altering illness. Not when you lose your first love, your best friend, or your Dad. Not when you lose your youth, your dream job ends, or when you experience transcendent art for the first time.

We will never get to experience childhood again, go back to the first day of college, or experience the choices we didn’t make. We can only shed our old skin and make new choices. It is only in the willingness to encounter sorrow that we can truly know love and it is only in losing part of ourselves that we allow ourselves the space to grow.

The western paradigm is a love affair with infinite growth, but culturally we are simultaneously terrified of death. Ironically, true transformational growth happens through loss when we face our shadows of guilt and grief. We can only be born again after losing ourselves first. When we aren’t willing to face the death of our ego ideals, we simply see repetition, stagnation, and gridlock. If these words sound familiar, maybe it’s because in many ways they are a descriptive of ‘normal’ life in modern society.

U2 was my favorite band growing up and they used to end every concert with their song “Forty” based on the 40th Psalm. As the show would end, the entire crowd would sing the chorus in unison “I will sing, sing a new song.” The chant would continue until the band left the stage and the lights came on.

When this sickness is over, we will have been set down on “a new shore” as Francis Weller says. This moment presents an opportunity – not to go back, return to normal, or make something great once again, but to be truly transformed and sing a new song.