Two Years

*Trigger warning: This post talks about suicide and suicidal ideation.*

April 15, 2024, marked two years since I left my safe, on all accounts successful, legal career to venture into the unknown. It also marked a moment when my depression, despair, and grief took me back to a dark place that I thought I had escaped, moved passed. But it found me, like an ex-lover. So familiar, but so unwanted. Yet knows me so well, that it knows exactly what to do and say to bring me to my knees.

For those of you that have been on this journey with me, either through my musings or bearing witness in real time, you know a lot has happened in these two years. For those that are new, here is a quick recap: I sold a house. Left a job. Got a job as a law professor. Lived in a van for three months with two dogs. Went to Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. Moved to Eugene, Oregon. Fell in love. Began learning how to teach something that is now second nature to me. Watched a man I loved get sicker and begin wasting away. Moved back to Portland, Oregon. Learned that my reasons for coming back to Portland were all based on lies and a sick man deep in his alcoholism. Had callous police officers tell me that this man I loved was dead. Started a new job at the federal district court. Turned 40. Fell into a deep, dark place. Started a nine-month yoga teacher training program. Got another job at a high school in North Portland. Bought a house. Celebrated 6 years of sobriety. Moved (again) during an ice storm. Fell in love again. Said goodbye to my darling Zuki (pictured here). Had my heart broken again. Continue to stand by my best friend’s side as she navigates the death of her mother.

Okay, so maybe there is a reason I’m tired.

Two years ago I didn’t know what I wanted to do with this life of mine when I made the decision to sell my house and quit my job. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be in Portland and I didn’t want to be a lawyer. The pain of staying where I was had finally gotten greater than the pain of making a change. And then, over these last two years, my Higher Power, the Universe, God, Goddess—whatever you want to call this Divine Energy that I believe connects us all—made clear to me that, “Oh sweetheart, no no. You are meant to be in Portland and you are meant to be a lawyer.” So here I am.

In my current job, I am a lawyer at a high school (with a tiny middle school program). But I am not the school’s lawyer. I am there for the students, to help them navigate outside legal issues. (I make clear to them every day that I can’t help them sue the school or the district, much to their dismay.) These are students who have failed out of the public school system and that our systems have utterly failed. And because of the systems we live in, the majority of these students are Black and Brown. I am seeing a side of Portland that I had the privilege not to see and to ignore my entire life. I am now bearing witness to and entrenched in poverty, generational trauma, violence, systemic racism, resilience, grit, and grace.

I am also bearing witness to two failing systems: legal and education. And not because there are not good people in these systems. There are such amazing humans in each of these systems that are well aware of how these systems are failing, but feel powerless and stuck to make any changes. It feels like something is about to give… and I’m excited and scared to be a part of whatever comes next.

I am almost six months into this job, and it has taken its toll. I did not come into this job fully resourced, strong, or with a fully charged battery. I came in bruised, grieving, broken, and exhausted. But/and I know I have found at least some of what I was looking for when I walked away from all that was safe and secure two years ago. And I am coming into and realizing my super powers. I am a really fucking good lawyer. I have an ability to translate complicated legal issues so that everyone can understand them, including teenagers. I know how to help people feel seen and heard in a way that makes a traumatic event slightly less traumatic. And I no longer have to worry about how much I am costing my clients or how many hours I’m billing to help my clients with their legal and life issues. I just get to show up and be human and be of service.

But/and this week was a reminder to me that I am not okay. That I am still running on fumes. That my grief and depression and alcoholism are just around the corner. I have been in recovery long enough to be painfully aware that parts of my mind want to kill me. Thankfully I have also been in recovery long enough to build habits that kick in when my mind goes to that place. I drank because I feel things, all the things, deeply. And it’s too much. I didn’t have tools to help me navigate all the feelings, so I drank. Now I have other tools, but the feelings are still there. And they still get to be too much. Last summer when they were more than too much, my mind skipped over the desire to drink and went straight to wanting to just be done. To not feel anything anymore. I wanted it all to end and I wanted my life to end.

I had a plan. I knew how I would do it. And then part of me got scared.

I told my therapist (who I had been seeing for 4 years at that point). She normalized what I was feeling and we created a safety plan. And I put that plan into motion a few times last summer.

Then, on Monday, when the darkness returned, I again found myself unable to see any point to all of this. Any point to me. Any value in me staying here. And then I felt complete and utter exhaustion for still having to feel these feelings. I had a plan. I knew how I would do it, and just wanted it to all be done.

But, instead, I put my safety plan in motion. And I’m still here. Still sober. Still exhausted. I honestly still don’t know what the point of me is. All I have right now is the willingness to have faith that maybe there is a point. And, for now, that is enough.

Why do I feel called to share all this in such a public way? Maybe, in part, as a cry for help. (I am a bit of a drama queen, let’s be honest.) But/and I’m also sharing for the same reasons I share about my alcoholism, grief, and recovery. Because I don’t think I’m the only one. We are each unique, but our fears and our dark places are all surprisingly similar. These systems and -isms we live in—capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, homophobia, etc.—all thrive on our individual suffering; on us believing that we are alone and the only way to solve our suffering is by buying shit we don’t need and by believing that we are somehow better than someone else.

I know I am only still here because people before me were brave enough to be vulnerable enough to share their darkness and how they found the light again. And even though I am aware that my darkness will come back, that I’m not fully through whatever this part of my journey is, I do know that I am at a place where I can share it and be okay with your reactions. So here I am.

Let me end with a passage from Brian Doyle from his collection of essays, One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder. I found this passage when I was in my darkest moments last summer, and it gave me a glimmer of light to follow. (That and my Effexor. It takes all sorts of help and assistance to navigate dark times.) I read this passage every day for months. He writes:

All you can do is face the world with quiet grace and hope you make a sliver of difference. Humility does not mean self-abnegation, lassitude, detachment; it’s more a calm recognition that you must trust in that which does not make sense, that which is unreasonable, illogical, silly, ridiculous, crazy by the measure of most of our culture. You must trust that you being the best possible you matters somehow. That trying to be an honest and tender parent will echo for centuries through your tribe. That doing your chosen work with creativity and diligence will shiver people far beyond your ken. That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will prevent a thread or two of the social fabric from unraveling. And you must do all of this with the certain knowledge that you will never get proper credit for it, and in fact the vast majority of things you do right will go utterly unremarked. Humility, the final frontier, as my brother Kevin used to say. When we are young we build a self, a persona, a story in which to reside, or several selves in succession, or several at once, sometimes; when we are older we take on other roles and personas, other masks and duties; and you and I both know men and women who become trapped in the selves they worked so hard to build, so desperately imprisoned that sometimes they smash their lives simply to escape who they no longer wish to be; but finally, I think, if we are lucky, if we read the book of pain and loss with humility, we realize that we are all broken and small and brief, that none among us is ultimately more valuable or rich or famous or beautiful than another; and then, perhaps, we begin to understand something deep and true about humility.

This is what I know: that the small is huge, that the tiny is vast, that pain is part and parcel of the gift of joy, and that this is love, and then there is everything else. You either walk toward love or away from it with every breath you draw. Humility is the road to love. Humility, maybe, is love. That could be. I wouldn’t know; I’m a muddle and a conundrum shuffling slowly along the road, gaping in wonder, trying to just see and say what is, trying to leave shreds and shards of ego along the road like wisps of litter and chaff.

Brian Doyle, One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder, p. 58-59.

I had to smash my life a few times to finally rid myself of my masks. And now, for better or worse, I show up as I am, how I am, wherever I am. And even though I too am “a muddle and a conundrum,” I am willing to continue to shuffle down the road towards love.

Take care of yourself and everyone else. All we have is each other.