As Forrest Runs, so Haley comets

So this past week in therapy I expressed something that had been weighing on me for a while: there is not a single person who can truly, totally understand all the places I have been in the past six years. My parents came closest, sure. And then I have my circle of closest girlfriends who have walked through (figurative) fire with me and have celebrated every tiny victory along this (wild) healing journey. But no one WENT to all the places with me. No one lived with me when I moved from Abilene to Waco--then across the country to California! Then, it fell apart--back to Abilene again. Then, to Oregon for a bit--then back to Abilene. Then to Houston for treatment, then to Waco during the pandemic. Then back to Houston for more treatment and to get my life going. Then back to California (and here I still am). 

That's a lot of moving, right? That's a lot of life. I have a million stories about the wonderful people I met along the way: the people in all the churches I visited; my co-workers from camp and the campers I had the privilege to counsel; stories about the nurses and doctors and other practitioners who helped me pick up the pieces of my life when my brain turned against me; my fellow patients and clients during treatment who were my community during some really dark days...everywhere I went, I found pockets of community and beautiful people with amazing stories that I came to call friends. 

"Life is relationships; the rest is just details." --Gary Smalley  

I read that quote in a book about twelve years ago and I live by it. Although I was a bit of a nomad, I worked hard on maintaining relationships and collected the new people in my heart. (I'm a friend-collector. Maybe this is why I love dogs so much, as I am basically a golden retriever in human form who just wants to be friends with literally everyone and wants everyone to be my best friend??) 

Here's the thing though: I'm sad about it now. 

The beginning of a song that comes to mind is "The Story" by Brandi Carlile: 

"All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am 

So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am 

But these stories don't mean anything when you've got no one to tell them to 

It's true that I was made for you"

This is what's been weighing on me and what I was finally admitting out loud (and now letting you read) this past week: I've been on all these wild, fantastic, unbelievable journeys...alone. Yes, okay--I have my family. And yes, of course, I always have God with me. But like, physically, I was alone. I lived alone and moved alone and day in and day out I did it all alone and am still doing this by myself. And it really is a bummer sometimes. 

The analogy I used in my therapy session (hey, I love analogies if you didn't know--welcome to my brain!) was from when Forrest Gump runs across the United States and he's gone to all these amazing places, over all these different terrains, and he's done all these different things in his life, but how do you truly capture all of that? You can't fully explain it to the people that weren't there, like when you try to take a picture of the moon or a sunset. It doesn't fully capture its glory. My Camp Tilikum friends will never understand what life at Pathfinder was like. And I don't think any of my Bergin classmates will ever understand my ACU world. And that's okay. They all live in my heart and my head. What I do wish I had, obviously? I wish to have my version of Jenny. 

Forrest didn't have Jenny with him throughout all his travels and everything, but I love that line of the movie when she says, "I wish I could've been with you," and he says, "You were."      

This is actually kind of how I feel. The hopeful romantic continues to hold on. He's out there, I know it. I'll leave it at that.

I think about all the places I've been: I definitely wasn't running like Forrest--I'm not much of a long-distance runner, as I discovered in middle school cross country. Not my thing! No, I was a comet. For the obvious reason: my name, duh. It's spelled a little differently than Halley's Comet (and I've never been certain which way it's pronounced) but I'd rather burn bright like a comet than have to run, so there.

Until my current living situation, I never lived in one place for more than ten months during the past five or six years, and some were as short as three months. I got used to short-term friendships. Some people came into my life as good friends only for me to have to say goodbye three or four weeks later. Sometimes that felt like “Hey nice to meet you, you’re really cool...well, bye forever!” It does feel a bit like seeing a comet, right? Maybe that's how people felt encountering me.

I’ve tried to appreciate that for what it was and still is—an excellent opportunity to know many different people in multiple places in the country, from all different walks of life. 

Despite the fact that life as a solo comet is lonely, my goal as Haley the Comet is to burn as brightly as possible and not just be...well, a flying rock? I want anyone who gets to meet me to feel better for having interacted with me—whether they got to know me for a moment, an hour over a meal, during a party, for a month, for a year, or longer. I want them to walk away feeling better about themselves. I want to be kind and warm and bright--for people to figuratively say, “Wow, I'm glad to get to experience Haley the Comet.”

Sincerely,

Haley (your friendly local comet, sailing by and signing off)