What I learned in 2015

In October, one of my molars became abscessed. Despite copious amounts of Tylenol and Ibuprofen, the pain was persistent, would wake me up at night. I fantasized about extracting my molar with plyers as I cried. After a root canal, I spent a week vomiting (I’m allergic to Vicodin), my face swollen, my mouth too sensitive to eat anything but applesauce and yogurt.

The experience made me reflect on healing – the theme of 2015. Here are the revelations:

1) Healing is not linear. During the healing process, you might take two steps back for every three steps forward. You might, six months or six years after an initial trauma, feel temporarily, inexplicably, that trauma’s immediate, acute pain.

2) The mind, like the body, is resilient. The root canal experience, in particular, made me observe the gentle way that I treat my injured body – the confidence I have that my body (which has endured combat, marathons, a half-Ironman, and international travel) will recover. Yet, I realized this year that I’ve never shown that same gentleness or felt that same confidence toward my mind.

And, yet, in 2015, my mind showed me that it, like my body, was resilient, and could heal from a lifetime of traumas — war, dysfunctional relationships, misogyny, my mother’s mental illness …

3) Setting boundaries is Rule 101. In 2015, healing came initially from setting boundaries – from cutting people out of my life completely or partially (e.g., unfollowing them on social media, yet still agreeing to the occasional coffee), and from saying “no” when I didn’t want to do something (e.g., stay in my job any longer, stay in my apartment any longer, serve as the secretary of a club, exercise excessively, date, adopt a dog).

4) Healing cannot happen unless you are empowered and able to tell your story. Boundaries aside, the most incredible thing I learned about healing came on the writing front …This year I’ve started, stopped, and scrapped at least half a dozen essays. The interesting thing is that, when I collected and compiled the scrapped essays, I realized that they were largely about “feminine” topics like menstruation (versus, say, war). Topics that felt taboo to a writer who’s spent years in masculine environments like West Point and the Army.

Every time I sat down to write about “feminine” topics this year, I’d hear voices in my head telling me that they were boring and inconsequential, not worth anyone’s time or effort.

But one night recently, I tried again to finish a “feminine” essay. I sat at my kitchen table with my laptop open to a blank word document. I felt a strange sense of anger and urgency. I said aloud to the universe, “Please let me finish this one piece.”

I typed frantically, and during the next five hours so much of what I’ve wanted to say for the past 12 months spilled onto the page. The 4,100-word essay I created encapsulates many of the thoughts and feelings that I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to articulate for a year. The essay isn’t polished or perfect, but the point is that I got it out.

I believe that my life’s purpose is to tell stories – including other peoples’ stories – with honesty and compassion. And I was blessed to become a full-time professional writer in 2015. But how can you tell other peoples’ stories with honesty and compassion when you can’t tell your own? When again and again you elect to write about topics that happened to you, but don’t particularly resonate with you (war, for instance) in lieu of topics (like menstruation) that do?

I’m proud of the essay I wrote at the end of 2015, and I hope it represents a new direction in my life – where I’m more comfortable writing about topics that represent my authentic truth.

5) The people I want to write about are the ones who haven’t been able or empowered to tell their authentic truths. On that note, I identified a reason why groups of people who’ve faced decades of subjugation and trauma (e.g., women, those in generational poverty, those in war-torn countries) have struggled to heal: throughout history they’ve often been unable or not empowered to tell their stories (or not had an audience that would listen). These are the types of people that I hope to spend the next decades of my life writing about.

On a non-healing note:

After a five-year hiatus, I’m also poised to resume international travel in 2016, and I’m hopeful that, going forward, there might be a way to spend a few months per year working remotely from other countries.

As 2016 approaches, I feel twinges of curiosity that make me hopeful … and my heart feels more open than is has in a long time.