Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012.
Today’s question comes from your hostess, Colleen (@cnewvine on Twitter) — inspired by Lara Zielin (@larazielin).
When have you had an a-ha moment about your life? What did it take to get that insight or clarity?
I’ve blogged before about my friend Lara Zielin, a young adult author who as of this summer has three published novels to her name — and who went through a life transformation when she decided to end her unhappy first marriage.
Lara recently wrote a guest post on John Scalzi’s blog about the real story behind her new book, “The Waiting Sky.” In it, the main character, Jane, leaves her alcoholic mom in Minnesota to chase tornadoes with her brother.
Lara’s said before that the book was inspired by her own tornado chase, but in this post she writes …
What I’ve neglected to say in every version of this story—until now—is what storm I had to face when I went to Tornado Alley. Because, you see, none of us storm chasers are really chasing literal storms. Not in my experience, anyway. All of us are running from something. All of us are looking for chaos in the clouds because better it’s there than in our own lives.
If I’m honest, I’ll tell you that I was running from an unhappy marriage.
I was married right out of college to a good guy, a decent, hard-working guy, who just wasn’t…THE guy. And this truth—this unavoidable storm of honesty—descended on me in Tornado Alley. I think, when I went on that chase by myself in 2004, I still thought things were fine, just fine. I’m a Midwesterner, after all, and we are prone to impractical optimism.
If you want to read more about how the truth hit Lara, prompting her to go home and end her unhappy marriage, check out the rest of the post.
I think it’s a powerful idea, this notion of having reality reveal itself — especially if we’ve been carefully, willfully avoiding it.
So when have you had the truth present itself to you and what did you do about it?
3 Comments
Amy Spooner
I was in a job I hated. One night I was crying so much in bed about it all that I decided to move down to the couch, in order to let my husband sleep. I laid awake on the couch the entire night, crying. At some point during the night, my brain articulated for the first time, “I can’t do this anymore.” In the morning, I said it aloud for the first time, and my husband replied, “So don’t.” Two days later, I announced I was quitting — even though I didn’t have another job lined up.
Eleanor Traubman
I have always like the fact that I can make people laugh (and the fact that I laugh easily!) Both bring me a lot of pleasure and joy. It’s a way of keeping perspective and lightening the load. Somewhere in my twenties, after different people had commented on some aspects of my humor, I realized that there I was using too much sarcasm. And part of that was using humor at other people’s expense. I realized it was a bit of a protective device, and also kept me at a distance from folks.
I made a decision to stop using heavy sarcasm, and to not use humor at the expense of someone sitting next to me, even if it seemed “in good fun.” Turns out I am still able to bring laughter and have a good time without it!
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