Thursday, February 26, 2015

Brown Paper Packages

If there is one thing I love in life is it finishing something well.

As a detail-driven woman I have notoriously finished papers days ahead of time just to spend hours the night before it was due agonizing over the right adjective to use to describe the plight of honeybees or the way I feel about safety in a Sunday School classroom. I want my finished work to be perfect. Well-rounded. Tied up with string.

So after years of turning in completed assignments, wrapping up adventures with all to-do boxes ticked, and transitioning from one thing into another with some amount of ease, I am now struggling with the feeling that I can't finish anything.

ANYTHING.

And not just the big things in life, like leaving a job, but the little things, too. I have a handful of movies saved in my Netflix queue with less than an hour left til the credits roll. I have a half-eaten yogurt in the fridge. I have an unmade bed.

What happened to me?

Where did my zeal for checking things off a list go?
When did my ability to respond to everyone in my inbox disappear?
Why did my refusal to ever leave a commitment early evaporate?



My first week at Redwood Glen, training to be an OAC Counselor, seems like a pivotal time for all of this. I showed up for my summer position ready and willing to do whatever was asked of me. I had worked hard in my past jobs and was known for being efficient, a girl who got the job done. I was energetic, positive, and incredibly excited for a new experience.

Within the first few days that all changed.

My team walked through every event our teenage campers would experience, every event we were supposed to be able to do and support them through, and I failed miserably. I was unable to follow my teammates up the Vertical Playpen; my scrawny arms could not hold my body weight long enough to get from one element to the next. I sat on the top of the Leap of Faith, frozen in fear and embarrassment, and clumsily pushed myself off the pole toward the trapeze bar a few feet from my reach. As we climbed the Ventana Trail up the staggering Big Sur cliffs, surrounded by lupine and breathing salty air, I fell to the back of our quick-footed staff. I didn't mind coming in last but my mind started to worry I wouldn't be coming in at all. I couldn't finish our high-ropes elements, I couldn't do what our campers were supposed to, I probably couldn't finish this hike. I wouldn't be able to finish this job.

I sat down in the shade of an oak just off the trail and started to weep.

I honestly don't remember the conversation I had with my boss, Ben Ward, who came back to join me under that tree. All I know is that we ate sandwiches and eventually I was walking again. We somehow caught up with the rest of the team. People lightened my load by taking some of my gear. We took photos of the sweeping ocean view. We picked dandelions. We talked about condors and wildflowers and good movies and government conspiracies.

And then we were at our campsite.

I finished that summer well: I loved my coworkers, I hiked miles of Big Sur wilderness, I even made it to the top of the Vertical Playpen the last week with my campers cheering me on. I walked into an Outdoor Education position days after wrapping up and started a new adventure.



I wish I could say that is the end of this story but the fact is my time at Redwood Glen, my time as an Outdoor Educator, did not finish as I had planned. My over-looked health and well-being started to make itself known just a few months later. Since then it feels that I have not been able to end anything on my own terms; nothing has felt truly finished.

Leaving positions earlier than anticipated.
Not being able to give hugs and eat meals and take pictures.
Missing events and activities and conversations.
Nothing tied up with string.

And it frustrates me. I feel cheated and tired with so many open-ended leavings that bleed into the new things I am trying to experience.

Incomplete and Insecure.



So I am left to wonder, if a person never has closure are they able to whole-heartedly start something new? Can life go on if you never wrap anything up?

At this point I think so. Because as messy as life can get, and as imperfect as endings and beginnings can be,