I was living a lie.
On the outside, I had the trappings of happiness. A $2,000/month apartment overlooking Baltimore's Inner Harbor. 31 years old with a six-figure job. Daydreams of buying the 2012 Mustang I drove across the Palm Desert. And paying for it with cash.
I had never felt more hollow.
An illness, a thunderbolt, woke me up. I was staring at the ceiling, lying on the floor of a 5-star restaurant in Kilkenny, Ireland. I had passed out - I was going into shock - the waiter asked if I needed a doctor. I nodded my head yes. But my boss told him no.
Confused, in so much pain, a dear coworker drove me 40 miles & left me at an ER clinic. My teeth wouldn't stop chattering; words sounded strangely thru my swollen tongue. The doctor said I had a kidney infection. I could die. Perhaps I was.
Somehow I swallowed a few pills and got off the examination table. I'm going home, I announced to the cinder block walls. I found the door and felt my way back thru the desolate shithole that is Waterford, back to the house I was staying in. I threw my clothes in my suitcase - they were all wet. The walls were damp with mold. The water came out of the faucet black. Was this hell? Perhaps. What had I done?
I took the rest of the pills the doctor gave me, and in the hazy knowing between sleep and unconsciousness, I saw my dog George. He was waiting on the other side of a window. He shook his head; he wouldn't leave. I reached out, but my hand hit glass.
This illness would change my life - it compelled me to leave that business trip early - a 3-day journey alone through the heartland of Ireland, then over to London, praying Customs wouldn't confiscate the cream a Dublin pharmacist recommended to keep my organs from leaking into my pants. "That's too bad, Lorelai," my boss said when we spoke. Finally, I boarded a British Airways flight to Baltimore. It was hard for me to walk by the time we landed. My mother barely recognized me. I spent the next few days in the hospital. When I would wake, tears would run down my face. Somehow, the damage to my kidneys wasn't permanent. It took 3 weeks and all of my vacation time to recover. But on my first day back at work, I found out that my position had been eliminated.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Robert Frost
That job was my life. I don't think I'll ever understand how a Marketing Director leading a group to its most profitable year to date could be so expendable. I don't think I'll ever know. Maybe I don't want to.
What I have learned is what is really important. And it isn't stuff. It isn't even sight. It's that seed, deep down in your stomach, that propels you out of bed each morning. It's the urge to push on, even through the pain, that Something only your truest self feels. It's the roots of the Oak tree you never knew you had, until you dig into the soil and discover them.
Two months after my illness, I lost my apartment to Hurricane Irene. The ceiling collapsed, ruining my furniture. I actually laughed when I saw it. I was Edward Norton in Fight Club. I literally had nothing. And yet everything. Finally, I was free.
Steve Jobs said that if he hadn't been fired from Apple in 1985, he never would have met his wife, and he never would have pushed himself to come up with the innovations that took his company to the next level, proving his genius.
While I'm not fit to tie his shoelaces, I do understand what he meant. In the long, quiet hours since the summer, I've reconnected with my family and friends. True friends, not the people who come in and out of your life in your 20s. Their love and support means more than money ever could. Somehow I found the guts to launch my own business. And thru it (and completely out of the blue), I met someone very special.
He's the handsomest man I've ever seen, actually. His heart is good. We share a goofy sense of humor. And a childhood in Pennsylvania. He knows my thoughts and likes me for me.
I have never felt more blessed.