In order to move forward, I had to visit the past.
I planned to go to my storage Pod to get my fall and winter clothes to take back to Los Angeles. Visiting the Pod meant visiting the past which I didn’t want to do. Dad let me use his SUV. Before I left his house, he removed two dog kennels from the back and placed a step ladder in their place in case I’d need it. I told him I wasn’t getting much and wouldn’t need it. It kind of irritated me that he thinks about details like these. He’s just slowing me down. I’m typically in a hurry to scratch items off my to-do list and deal with obstacles as they come. But the ladder was there and I needed to get going.
I loaded the storage Pod a couple years prior after I got rid of the majority of my possessions before entering seminary. I’d packed my fall/winter clothes in garbage bags, like mortar, cramming them anywhere I could, to brace the other items for the journey from LA to Minnesota.
It was 34 degrees, and my hands were freezing as I opened the Pod.
I hadn’t dressed warmly enough. I saw a couple bags in front and threw them in the back of the SUV. I locked up the Pod and started the car to warm up.
Searching the bags, I didn’t see my stocking caps, scarves, or gloves. I turned off the car, opened the Pod again and started looking for more garbage bags. I pushed some things around and found another bag. Eureka! It had winter clothes. I took it back to the car and sorted the contents. I thought I was done but began to reflect on what I was doing and how I was doing it. I admitted to myself that I just wanted to push through and get this chore over with as quickly as possible. I’d found what I needed and wanted to leave but didn’t. Instead, I decided to go into the Pod once more and really look around and make sure I got everything.
I opened it again and looked at my things, lingering to take it all in.
The Pod and its contents represented the effect of the choices I’d made three years prior. It held the remaining furnishings and keepsakes distilled from selling and giving things away in preparation to follow a passion. Fragments and odds and ends were all I had left. Seeing it all made me sad. It represented another risk I’d taken to follow my passions only to have them not pan out as I’d hoped and believed.
I decided to make a thorough inventory of my things. Not just looking for bags of clothing but looking at what items I’d decided to keep. I put on my newly recovered gloves, hat and scarf and was motivated to forage behind the bigger items in the back. As I climbed on top of plastic containers to traverse my way, they broke under my weight. I was frustrated.
I was beginning to feel like every shortcut I took only made things worse and take more time.
At that moment I decided to do what dad would’ve done; unload the Pod. I was warmer and reluctantly started moving things into the parking lot. I slowed down so I could have an organized approach to my new task.
Clearing a path midway into the Pod, I was in a better position to get at things in the back. But there were big items, like my bed and couch standing on end, partially blocking my path. I remembered Dad’s ladder. As much as I resisted bringing it with me, I needed it. Setting it up, I could reach over the bigger furniture pieces see the rest of my things and retrieve two more bags of clothing and linens.
That day was symbolic of how I approach tasks. I want them over with as fast as possible.
I want things to be done, completed. I want to skip over the middle part…the part where things didn’t work out. The middle is where the work is. And that work is sometimes mundane, often painful and requires discipline to see it through.
I don’t want to think about how something that meant a lot to me ended because it means facing loss. I push through so I don’t have to think about the consequences of what happened. I procrastinate dealing with pain; loss.
I didn’t want to deal with a part of my life that had failed.
I’d packed up everything and put it away three years earlier. I was put-off dealing with it because I wasn’t ready to. My path forward and decisions concerning my return to California and profession were unclear. I was now making decisions out of necessity rather than from something I was passionate about.
I’d entered a point in my life where I was making decisions where I no longer looked for “signs” that I was on the right path. Making decisions without asking God if I was making the right one or not was foreign to me. But it was where I was; where life had brought me.
I put the remainder of my clothes in the car and re-loaded my things back in the Pod, securing them with rope and bungee cords for the return journey. Making this decision to move again was probably one of the most difficult I’ve ever made.
I felt incredibly alone, but I was comforted by dad’s car and ladder. It represented slowing down, doing things in an orderly fashion. Even more, it was an expression of his love and support. He helped me accomplish my task; a task that was much harder than expected. I was trying to move forward again, which meant looking at my past. I was struggling trusting myself to make decisions again too.
I was trying to move forward again, which meant looking at my past. I was struggling trusting myself to make decisions again too.
Moving on after defeat, setback and challenges can feel like living in a vacuum. I felt empty, lost, and directionless. But I started to move again, groping my way in the dark at times. It also means looking at what happened and facing the wreckage of broken dreams and beliefs.
