Turning losses into wins

for little Syd and anybody struggling to find the light in darkness

I painted this canvas over the past couple years, before I had words for the process of healing and growing. Below are the words.

For about 13 years, I suppressed darkness with a veil of light, but the longer and deeper I buried the rocks, the harder they were to carry.

Darkness first came knocking at eight-years-old when Caroline was ripped from my tight, loving grips. I held so much of her in my little hands: her delicate, perfectly hairsprayed blonde bangs that rested ever so lightly on her pure skin, the extra watery maple and brown sugar oatmeal she made when I was home sick, and the Lucazade, an extra fizzy orange soda, she brought me after her trips home to Ireland. I loved combing through her black wallet of photos, of her mom, her four sisters, her nieces and nephews, endlessly curious about this second family she carried in her pocket. Though my parents hired her to be my nanny, she quickly became my second mom and I became her Syddles.

She taught me so much: patience is a virtue, angels are real, and butter and jelly make magic on a toasted bagel. She taught me how to keep my room organized and to always finish my dinner, but she also showed me how to let my hair down and play. From going on sneaky, spontaneous McDonalds milkshake dates to making playful bets on what time my mom would get home from work, she made me feel so alive.

That’s why, at 32-years-old, her mortality didn’t seem real.

As the bus pulled up to my building, one month into third grade, the alarm bells started ringing. Caroline’s absence and my parents’ presence was rare, especially for three days in a row. As my parents, my brother, and I ascended to our 16th floor apartment inside our building’s square, caramel-colored elevator, my parents used the familiar 30 seconds to call for an unusual family meeting.

With the four of us gathered on my parent’s bed, atop their fuzzy leopard-print blanket, my dad explained, “a blood vessel popped in Caroline’s brain.”

The gravity of the diagnosis wasn’t clear to me. I asked the only question that mattered. “Will I ever see her again?”

I can still see my dad’s face, contorted in pain and wet with tears, as he slipped out, “I don’t think so.”

The agony coursed through my small body, as if a monster lodged its arms inside my gaping, screaming mouth, squeezing my insides until they were crushed.

Eager to get the monster out, I wrote my first song that night. My little eight-year-old fingers grazed the black keyboard of my silver HP laptop as I poured my memories and emotions into lyrics and rhymes. Those lyrics saved me. In the face of my first encounter with irreplaceable loss, those lyrics helped me see that Caroline was very much alive.

She was alive in my memories. She was alive in the half-full Coke bottle quietly sitting on a shelf in the fridge door. She was alive in the way she organized my pajamas, shirts, socks, and underwear in the drawers of my brown, antique wooden armoire.

Upon discovering this tremendous loss of life was more of an evolution of spirit, I began to grasp the concept of temporary and eternal. I started to understand that though physical existence is fragile, our experiences today infuse the physical with meaning that becomes eternal tomorrow. 

I began to set each of my experiences against a spectrum of what I wanted to be eternal. Caring for friends and family, holding them close, loving them, and making them happy illuminated my north star. I rarely fought back when faced with the petty growing pains of adolescent friendship. I didn’t want a fight to become a scar, like my final memory of arguing with Caroline about eating my carrots. I wished I just ate the carrots.

My values restored a sense of balance that year, until a ring of the phone knocked me off my feet.

I didn’t need my Dad to explain anything this time when he relayed that my Uncle Chubby had a brain aneurysm.

I watched my usually verbose Dad stoically hang up the phone, walk to the fridge, and pour a glass of orange juice. He gulped it down. Unlike the tears we shed together when Caroline passed, silence ensued. I felt numb and confused: confused by the speed at which people were dying, confused by the silence.

Why was the soft, pure sand slipping through my fingers so fucking fast, making space for dark, heavy rocks? Was I being punished? Was my family cursed?

I felt remorseful for patterns of “bad” behavior that might’ve invited darkness: stealing the trendy “Skip It” ankle toy from my first grade classmate’s cubby, lying to my best friends about having a twin named Samantha, and co-creating a Mean Girls-inspired “burn book” to gossip about my second grade peers.

Needing to regain my balance once again, I committed to “good” behavior that invited praise and reward: exhibiting loyalty to friends and family, excellence in school, obedience, and honesty.

I willed my family to be stewards of light too. Since I couldn’t control their actions, I depended on words of encouragement. For the next five or so years, I never left the house without telling my parents the phrases now permanently etched on my dad’s arm:

I love you. Have a great day and great luck. Don’t let anybody be mean or rude to you, and if they are, stick up for yourself. Be safe and be happy.

In case my words weren’t enough to ignite the light, I turned to my angels for reinforcement. Each night, I sat at the window in my parent’s bedroom, telling Caroline and Uncle Chubby about my day and how much I missed them, and asking them to protect my family and friends.

My prayers, blessings, and good behavior seemed to work: the light was engulfing the darkness. Balance was restored.

Not only did death slow down, but I felt successful in my personal endeavors: straight As, Cum Laude, amazing friends, early decision acceptance to Duke University’s engineering school, a double major, and a full time position at Google.

As the applause-driven accomplishments piled up, so too did the rocks of self betrayal. Abusing alcohol artificially lightened the burden, but only led to further betrayal of my friends and myself. The rocks became too heavy. I couldn’t keep my balance anymore.

I erupted in tears in the middle of an excellent performance review.

My manager, beaming with excitement, reviewed and applauded all the work I had done and the kind words my peers had shared. Like nails on a chalkboard, the applause painfully collided with a bubbling awareness of the parts of myself I had buried away in the pursuit of goodness, in the pursuit of light.

For the first time in my life, I was disgusted by my success. The addiction to applause was fading. A year of consistent, dedicated meditation practice was working.

I started with 5-10 minute guided meditations in the Headspace app. I scanned my body. That felt nice. I focused on my breath. That was hard. The guide let me know it was okay, even normal, for thoughts to intrude; he told me to let the thoughts pass over me and to return to my breath. I wasn’t sure what he meant by pass over me. Where were my thoughts passing to? How did one just let a thought go? Confusion aside, I felt a little calmer after.

I didn’t realize the meditation experience wouldn’t necessarily finish when the guided meditation did. Evening came, and with it, my first sleepless night. Frightened by the volume, chaos, and speed of my thoughts, I decided meditation wasn’t for me. I’d rather be blissfully ignorant and able to sleep.

I wasn’t blissful at all, though. I was a prisoner to random bouts of uncontrollable tears, anxiety, and frustration when people and events didn’t behave and unfold as expected. Unable to shake the disturbing peek into my mind, I wondered whether my negative experiences were the result of all I had buried away.

I began to read books about vulnerability, the difference between thought and identity, and presence. The concepts seeped into all my senses, evolving the way I experienced the world. Many of the concepts were grounded in getting in touch with an “inner self” that existed behind a curtain of emotions and thoughts.

Unsure of who my “inner self” was and how I might get to know her, I heeded each book’s description of meditation as a means to quiet the mind and get behind the curtain. I decided to give meditation another shot.

I experimented with different meditation styles until I tried one that made me feel like I was floating: Kundalini. Unlike the short, calming meditations I tried with Headspace, Kundalini uses chants, breathwork, and physical exercise to move stagnant energy through the body and create new energy.

As waves of energy began to flow, they lifted my heavy, dark rocks to the surface and into the light. They swept up the innocent, grief-stricken nine-year-old girl, empowering her to come up for air. I started to hear her, and as I did, I cried when I saw photos of her sweet, smiling face. In my race to light up the world, I left her needs and desires in the dark. My needs and desires.

I owe it to her, that sweet, quirky, silly girl, to bring the darkness into the light: to ask for help, to share my imperfections, to grieve, to play, to listen, to try, to fail, and try again, to shine as bright as the gold sequin skirt she loved to wear. To let go of the rocks and free up my hands, so I can write, and write, and write.

When I stopped fighting the darkness by clamoring for light, the world began to glow.

I ignited my own light, an eternal light that guides me wherever I go, and as it shines, the emotional whiplash of existing at the whims of my surroundings fades. A dimmed environment no longer dims my world. Instead, I have light to lend.

If before I had a lamp, now I have the sun.

The clouds still roll in, but these days, I gently weather the darkness into pure, soft sand: I turn to trust when I begin to resist, to love when I feel fear, to honesty when I try to hide, to allow when I want to control, and to accept when I start to judge.

This is balance. This is goodness. This is peace.

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Laying in bed last night, I found my Kindle opened to “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brené Brown, a book I haven’t opened since I first started my healing journey two years ago. Finding the following quote was a wonderful, full-circle moment:

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

The me of two years ago wouldn’t believe where I am today: I’m not just reading the quote above, I’m living it.