my song is on itunes; and life is life is life is life is life.

There is a half eaten bowl of tomato soup right next to me. At first, I almost burnt it because I was so distracted with all the hubbub of my song going live on itunes. And then, after barely rescuing it from that, I let it go cold before I could even finish it. And, uh-huh, for the same reason as before.

Hubbub.

Song.

On itunes.

People I have never met before buying it and using wonderfully expressive language to tell me that, in so many, words: they like it.

They effing like it.

Can I tell you something? In the spring of this year, I packed one polka dotted suitcase, a canvas tote bag that has now sat on the subway floors more times than I care to think about, and a guitar. I said good-bye to my parents and the dogs and got on the Chinatown bus headed to NYC with tears in my eyes. And then on my face. And then on my shirt. I was reading my copy of The Grief Club and I was thinking how just about everything in life seems to point to this one consuming lesson: LET GO. 

Because you just lose it anyway.

And I guess it’s easier to willingly let something go, than to have it pried from your white-knuckled fingers, huh?

I remember thinking, This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be moving to NYC by myself. He should be with me. And forgive me if I don’t mention exactly who he is right now. But the truth is that in one day–one cataclysmic day–he had left. My dream job (touring with the broadway show, A Chorus Line) had ended, and my house was no longer a home. I felt a deep sense of dysphoria. Actually, let me put it bluntly; crudely, even (cause it was raw, what I felt): I felt like everything I loved had turned to shit. 

But, what do you do? You keep being you. You make things and breathe and make jokes and find life interesting and practice kindness and forgive just as often as you need forgiveness, yourself (which is an awful lot, let’s be real); you appreciate the people who are still here and you learn to live without the people who have gone away; you dream, because god knows that if you stop dreaming, you become a robot and I’ve never heard of a robot moving anyone to tears or falling in love (there was that one robot who could read and that other robot who could kill–but still, we’re more than readers of other stories; more than killers of life); you find inspiration everywhere you are, darnit. EVERYWHERE. And if you haven’t found it, then you look harder, because it’s there–it has to be–because YOU’RE there. And you, we, every last one of us, can be–should be!–inspiring.

And you cry.

You let yourself cry as often as you need to; the pillow is well acquainted with your tears and some days you don’t even bother with mascara because it’s just gonna leave a little trail down your face, anyway.

But you also laugh.

You make fun of the mundane until there is a bit of the sublime in it, now that you’re laughing so hard; you realize that every bit of life matters and that, yes, that’s transcendent. The knowledge that every moment builds something that we call LIFE–and that life is all we have. Life and each other. And the God who gave us both.

You realize all this; it builds a reservoir in your heart. You pull from it when you see other people getting the things you dream of. The men who stay. The broadway shows. The charmed existence that really only looks that way from where you’re standing, anyway. But, like I said, that reservoir makes you realize something powerful: you’re on a journey and the story isn’t over. You don’t drive from Maine to Florida and stop off in Delaware for a spell, look around, only to complain about how Florida doesn’t have alligators, after all. You realize that, it’s okay, there’s no alligators yet–because your journey isn’t over. YET. Florida is still coming. Gators or bust!

So, all this to say, this is one heck of a journey. ALL OF IT. The grief and the joy–they each make the other that much more poignant and significant, I guess. And I have to say that I am grateful that I didn’t stop off in my grief and stay there forever, complaining that Florida has no gators, after all, if I can stretch that metaphor just a little bit further.

I am glad I kept on this journey; I have no idea where it will take me, but I never had, anyway. I thought I did, but life was all like, NOPE. So, nothing much has changed. I am on a journey. There are many bends in the road.

And tonight, I did a little dance in my living room while listening to ‘ain’t my friend.’ I danced in the very same leggings I wore in a certain video that has been making its rounds lately, if you wanna know the truth.

Not that I planned it that way, mind you; but what I have found is that sometimes life turns out better than we’d planned. Way better, actually.