Once, I traded who I was for proving something. The first big trade. I'm not sure, still, what I was trying to prove, except that I had it all together and hadn't been stupid in the first place. Except I didn't. And I had. But I held on. I am a hanger on. Quitting was a cardinal sin in my family growing up. Quitters were vile. Hell, liars were better. So, I lied. I faked happiness. I faked a lot of things. And it worked on most people. Not that it took that much skill - I spent years living far away from anyone who really knew me or cared about me. Never staying anywhere too long makes it easy to cover the cracks. The funny thing is, anyone who knows me will tell you I'm a terrible liar. And they're right. Except I'm a decent actress, and despite what you might think, that isn't the same thing. Actresses don't lie - they play pretend. I'm a book nerd and a daydreamer. I can do pretend.
Until I couldn't anymore. What I had to trade stopped being worth it. Going to graduate school and getting my Masters of Fine Arts in Writing is where I started realizing that, mostly because I woke up.
“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken.” ― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
For me, the shock treatment was writing. And once I came out of hibernation, I wanted to stay awake. So, I traded.
I traded security and hatefulness and misery and superiority and control issues for freedom and authenticity and joy and never having to play pretend again. I gave up a lot of exhausting misery and self-loathing, so that was good. People who had known me from before I made the first big trade said things like you seem like yourself again and I'm so glad you're back and we thought aliens had abducted you. People who only knew me in my pretend years were very, very confused. Unless they had really paid attention. I no longer lived with a bully (a story for another day), I no longer pretended to like things that bored me. I was awake and I was on the road and I was poor.
All of that was before I met the man who is now my husband. I had traded a life of comfortable unhappiness for a life of financial insecurity (understatement), art, and authenticity. I had traded fake friends for real friends. (It's funny how you realize who your friends are when your happiness starts to piss them off - but that, too, is a story for another day.) I traded knowing what was in store for being glad I didn't.
My husband and I fell in love fast. When you know, you know is one of those things I used to think was a total lie that people tell - until it happened to me. We were married in a fever. A quiet, joyful, white hot fever.
We are still poor. We honestly wouldn't make it if it weren't for a tiny handful of very specific people who believe in us and what we are doing.
These are the things we trade: money, ease, routine, being understood, respect in some circles, certainty.
But the things we gain.
Oh, but the things we gain.
