Hallway Hanging...

It has been said, “it is hell in the hallway...” And I have found that to be true.  Time spent in life’s “hallways” or rather time spent in between one version of your life and the next is sometimes very difficult.  Sometimes life just ushers you from one room to the next, you spend very little time in the hall.  You just move from room to room.  But then there are times, like these, where I am in the hallway not sure what door to enter, and for the most part, finding every door I try locked or extremely difficult to open...

I know there is value to time spent in the “I don’t know what the fuck I am doing, or what the fuck I want” hallway.  I know this is a vital and actual part of finding out what I do want and what I am going to do.  It is just uncomfortable and I think more than anything else in this life, it is discomfort that I avoid the most.  And avoidancy is currently kicking my ass.  But that is a subject for another day.

I do not enjoy being uncomfortable.  And I can see that being comfortable is something I have sought, craved, yearned for, demanded and given up a great deal in order to have.  A level of comfort in my life in all the ways, all the time.  I am constantly and unremittingly searching for comfort.  I need my clothes to feel a certain way, no tags or fabric that itch or bind.  I need my house to be in a certain order, with everything in its place and clean!  I need my relationships to provide a certain level of comfort and safety.  I want to feel emotionally comfortable all the time.

Of course, comfortability with life and all its vagaries isn’t possible all the time.  And growth really does happen just outside your comfort zone.  So, life has been uncomfortable, frequently.  And I have struggled a great deal to find new zones of comfort when my current one becomes untenable...

I heard a newcomer say at a meeting years ago when she was struggling each moment to remain sober, “I guess I am just going to have to be ok being uncomfortable for awhile...”  And I thought immediately, that that single fact was why I was still there 20 years later!  I was willing, over and over again, to make myself uncomfortable and to persevere through those times that my life, my thoughts, my brain, my body, my social circle became so uncomfortable I had to do something different.  I saw, and still do see, the value of discomfort in this life.

So back to the hallway...

The hallway can be an exciting place!  It is, after all, where all the doors are.  All the options exist in the hallways of our lives.  All the choices we have are only accessible through the variable hallways we are presented with in our lives.  But it feels weird as you see all the other people in your life go in and out of all the doors.  Finding peace, tranquility, purpose, value in each of their attempts.  Then you go and try the same door and it just won’t open for you.  Or you gain access to the coveted room and get in there and immediately think, “what the fuck?  How does anyone exist in this fucking place?”  And back to the hallway you go!

So I currently feel like some sort of weirdo hanging on at a high school party long after my time has come to pass.  I am lurking in the hallway, just there all the time, waiting for my next move, which remains, out of reach or incongruous with the moment I am currently living in.  But like a ghost of persons past, I just hang in the hallway, wandering up and down it, eyeing the doors and checking them out.  Seeing who is going in which one, surveying their relative levels of comfort or discomfort with their decisions.  I talk to the people sometimes, “hey, how did you like that room?  Was it cool?  What is going on in there?”  But like most of life, someone else’s account of a life experience is nothing like your experience of it.  So you can interview the other life participants all you want, and you may gain a little insight but at the end of the day, you are just going to have to see for yourself.

I tend to get analysis paralysis in the hallway, too many doors and choices and so I become paralyzed with fear of selecting the wrong one.  I have too many choices and so I default to just sitting down and saying, “fuck it!  I will just live in the hallway forever...”  But hallways are not for permanent residence, and if you don’t figure that our the other life participants will surely let you know in short order as they step over and around you on their way to their next grand adventure!

It is so funny when I think of this hallway metaphor, I always think of the elementary school I went to for 2nd and 3rd grade in Unionville, Indiana.  My 3rd grade classroom was upstairs and it was just this long straight hallway with these light brown doors.  Industrial 1970s tile on the floors.  I believe there was a window at one end.  A staircase behind a fire door at each end.  I do not have any idea why this hallway is what I always picture.  I mean, at 56, I have been in a fucking lot of hallways.  But this is the one I return to.  I remember it not being all that well lit.  A little dim, which was oddly reassuring.

So after wandering this hallway without a pass for some time now, I have decided to just sit down under the window in the corner and just wait.  I have no idea which room contains my future.  I have no idea which one I want.  I have no idea what I am supposed to do and every time I try to force myself into a decision, I falter, stumble and panic.  So it is clearly not time to make a decision to settle into any room option.

I picture myself sitting in the corner as all the students change classes, at first eyeing me like I am some sort of weirdo, but then after a bit of time, coming to accept that I am there and not a threat.  Not a person of interest or issue.  Actually, after some time in that corner, the passersby kind of like me, and think I am kinda cool. I am just sitting there on a meditation cushion, doing my best to just be present.  Watch the doors, watch the people, wait for inspiration.  Wait for my life to urge me towards whatever door awaits me next.

And even as I write that, there is this part of me that doesn’t ever want to find another room.  That wants to spend her life always in the options.  This is also hardwired into me, this idea that I need and want to keep all options open all the time.  That committing to a doorway is a kind of death...what if I don’t like that room and decide to leave, and then end up back in the hallway again, wouldn’t it just be easier to stay in the hallway???

But then I remember all the doors I traversed and all the rooms I have participated in my life:  college, law school, moving to DC, starting my own practice, moving to AZ, getting married, having kids, getting divorced, moving back to CA, living in my house for the last 10 years, dating, not dating, traveling.  There have been so many thresholds I have crossed and then recrossed...and my life is the better for it, absolutely.  And I know that I shall not remain in the hallway forever, but that I shall absolutely return to the hallway many more times in my life, because that is just how life is.  Precariously uncertain, with options and more options, and a decided lag between what is and what will be.  I, because I am who I am, want to shorten that gap, the divide between what life looks like now and what life will look like on some future date...but I can’t right now. It isn’t time and that is the only thing I am certain of at the moment. 

My task is to hang in the hallway and try not to make such a big deal about it.  I am just here, in my corner, doing my thing, slapping high fives to the kids on their way to class, talking to the teachers that stop by sometimes, trusting and knowing that at some point in time in the future I will be moved towards a particular doorway and then ushered through, sometimes a volitional act, and sometimes tractor beamed into my next adventure.  It matters not really which one happens, each shall occur in good time, just not my time.

If you happen to end up in my 3rd grade hallway, stop by, say hi. If you are also wandering some weird hallway of your past, I am pretty sure there is a landline somewhere, so give me a call.  I have no idea what the number is here, but I trust that you can figure it out.  You can also always write me here.  That I will get even though in 3rd grade blogs and the internet didn’t even exist.  This is a magical hallway where all that was and all that will be exist at the same time.  Anything is really possible during hallway hang time, and that is a gift in and of itself, again, still...

Ok, I went on a deep dive and found my old elementary school and spent an hour on their Facebook page, trying to find a photo of the upstairs hallway...I couldn't. But this is the school and this is the downstairs hallway which is gonna have to do...clearly, they have upgraded in the intervening 50 years!