Life, untethered.

You know the scene in Forrest Gump where Lieutenant Dan fights with God in the middle of a hurricane, arms spread wide, yelling, and sitting atop the masthead of a shrimping boat getting battered by the wind? Sometimes I think that's what I'm doing. Just yelling at God and asking if that's all He's got, as I remove one false security after another from my life and let the winds blow.

Fourteen months I have spent untethering. First, from my teaching job which enslaved me temporally, geographically, and financially. It kept me encased in a specific lifestyle, in a specific place, and on a specific schedule. Staying up later than 10pm or going away for the weekend always meant paying for it at work. If you've ever been in charge of children, you know how they'll make you pay for every moment you are off your game, and they are very talented. Spending on anything outside of necessity (a nice bottle of wine, a dinner out, new clothes, a travel trip) always meant foregoing something else. There was no unaccounted for treat, always an embedded choice.

Next, I untethered from habits and from beliefs around those habits.

If I didn't work ten hours a day, I was doing nothing.

If I didn't "go" to work, I wasn't working.

If I didn't act in service of others 90% of the time, I was selfish.

If all the work I did didn't earn me money, I was wasting my time.

Then, I untethered from a succession of irrational fears.

What if I became a bum, lazy and unfocused?

What if I was unable to take care of myself? Became homeless or poor or sick without health insurance? A burden to my family and friends?

What if I moved and was miserable AND alone somewhere else? And then I would be older, poorer, and no closer to my goals.

What if my future husband was in Boston, and I left too soon, never meeting him?

What if all I did was create a gap in my resume, making me unemployable?

Lastly, I untethered from the place I called "home," my apartment, the last link of permanence to an old life.

I set off to drive the country, one coast to another, to take in places and lives different from mine. I befriended a shopkeeper in Shamrock, Texas who the town calls "Precious," a grandmother to all. I wandered small coastal California towns. I climbed as many rocks as I could in Utah and let the desert, summer heat beat me and educate me on its sovereignty. I rooted for a stranger named Mike at a craps table in Vegas, for a moment a part of his community.

The wind is still blowing and I ask myself "What is left? What is left to untether and what will remain?" None of the things I feared or believed were true, real, or necessary. I do not need them to live or be. They give me nothing of value. I can change my life any time I want. And I can change it back. If I accept change as the only constant, both internally and externally, then there is no need to hold on. Then each day is an exercise in letting go. An exercise in living the present, in doing the work set before you.

So, I continue, untethered, grateful, ready, angry, crying, arms outstretched towards the heavens, looking for an escape hatch, and showing up for this fight of my life.

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