Women Running Barefoot

When it feels impossible, we somehow keep going.

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

I had a rock bottom moment this past weekend. It felt all the more demoralizing because it came on the heels of one of my best days in weeks. If you’ve been following my sentimental saga of sadness, you’ll know that last month I dropped my oldest daughter off at college. We are closer than the typical mother-daughter duo, and I uncomfortably dodge crossover into “enmeshment/co-dependency/parentification” when I describe our dynamic and the stabilizing force she was in my life during a hellish year of divorce. Now she is gone—thriving, as she should be—and I face a transition that has somehow amplified old pain and served it up as a redux. The casserole sucked the first time, and the leftovers are even worse.

And yet, on we trudge.

I woke up on Saturday feeling at home in my skin and heart for the first time in weeks. My energy felt boundless and liberating, and I used it to fuel projects previously deemed too overwhelming to tackle. This is reclamation season, dammit, and I was ready for it! Driven by an urge in particular, to reclaim my basement, I cleaned out closets and rooms, filled my car to capacity with donation items, and straight-up trashed anything I could not easily identify.

Closets became presentable, board games either reorganized or thanked for their service during an era when entertainment was questionable and distinctly un-fun, coats were donated, and cobwebs were swept. I experienced a wave of pure joy and glee when I realized I had NOT in fact missed trash day—a shameful oversight that nearly ruined my Friday—and saw my teenage neighbor dragging the bins to the curb for me as the garbage truck turned into the cul-de-sac. Did I run across the street screeching with gratitude and delight, throwing my arms around said child, and proclaiming him my favorite person alive? Yes, yes, I did.

I felt like ME again! I went to a perfectly astonishing fusion of storytelling, poetry, and comedy performed by three dynamic women, joined by two of my favorite people, and I wept and laughed and reveled in shared pain and transformation. Goddammit, I could DO this life thing, grief and uncertainty and change and pain and all!

As an alternative to knocking on wood, I acknowledged in hushed tones on the drive home that I knew my “good day” didn’t necessarily indicate I was turning a corner, that change and pain aren’t linear and that I was all too aware than more bad days could creep up. Sort of like when your baby takes two good naps and you prematurely announce you have a great new “pattern” only to have them fuck you over the very next day and never nap again. I figured my verbal confirmation that things can always get worse would serve as a talisman against misfortune. Goddamn, did that backfire.

Sunday morning found me perplexed as to why my coffeemaker wouldn’t work, the counter lighting was off, the usual GFCI reset didn’t work, and nothing on the breaker appeared to be amiss. Perplexed was the first adjective, followed shortly by tremendous irritation because I NEEDED MY FUCKING LATTE, and then rage when I heard the dishwasher make the beepy sound once when I pushed reset on the outlet, and then nothing happened.

Cursing and grumbling, I pressed the button more frantically, and in the process, knocked a glass milk bottle onto the ground, where it shattered instantly, sending shards into my legs. Blood poured down my thigh and it took me quite a few minutes before I realized there was actually a piece of glass sticking out of my foot that I had to remove myself. Keeping dogs away from blood and glass while cleaning up blood and glass is no small feat.

Tigger CAN NOT EVEN with this bullshit.

I’ll spare you the details of the next four hours of my life, but to recap, it consisted of a bewildering rollercoaster of weeping, bleeding, flipping breaker switches at random, restarting certain kitchen outlets momentarily, then off and on again, finally making coffee, sweeping up glass (not in that order), calling my father and brother, ultimately realizing that the air conditioning no longer worked, and calculating the summer’s already costly repair tally and wondering who might know a trustworthy electrician because obviously, everything was going rapidly to shit.

Scattered amongst this goldmine of dysfunction were three women who put me back together; two sat on my couch and one talked me out of a panic/grief attack over the phone after I was literally face down on the bedroom floor, sobbing and screaming and hyperventilating and terrifying my dogs (fortunately no children were present for this day’s events).

And why did I react with such intensity to a mere string of household fuckery? Because I have never felt more alone in my entire life. Because, as I have droned on about in previous columns and over cocktails and coffees and couches, this world was not built to support single moms. Because everyone low-key wants to help you, but most people really can’t. Because in the end, if you are sans partner and sans co-parent, all of the messes and disasters and heartaches are yours alone. And it’s heavy. And scary. And overwhelming. And it’s really, really lonely.

And yes, I chose this. I would choose it again.

And yes, I broke today. But as the wise women who held me up reminded me, breaking does not mean you are broken forever. Sometimes the breaking is what heals us. Sometimes we simply must fall apart if we are to rise as the next incarnation of ourselves. Sometimes we need to scream with our face pressed against a hard floor. Sometimes we need to wail and mourn.

And the weeping and raging doesn’t need to be terrifying, though sometimes it feels that way. One of my former husbands used to lament my emotionality; tears were a sign that I was “greatly disturbed.” (Or maybe it was distressed. Shrug.) More than one of my partners has balked at the ferocity of my feelings, but I’m not afraid of my tears. They are not Alice’s tears that will carry me into an ocean of god knows what. They are the waves I will ride to the next glorious beach.

As I have said to my oldest child as a mantra these past weeks, “Remember, you know how to take care of yourself.” She does. And I do. And when I scream until my throat is raw and hyperventilate on the phone and rage to my family members, I have not crossed over to the dark side. I have dipped a toe into my own darkness, yes. But the work lies in the shadows; that is where the beauty lies, too.

We do not get to skip the shitty parts, my friends. Those who choose to navigate a safer path will miss the rewards. It is uncomfortable being here. It is ugly sometimes. Occasionally it terrifies me. But I know myself, and I know I will find my way through. Not out, not around. Through.

The women who carried me today have all experienced loss and divorce and pain. They are warriors, and they show up tirelessly, as I do. A reader of mine shared a Facebook post, a quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, one of my most beloved writers, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

Nadia Alenov

“It is interesting to note that among wolves, no matter how sick, no matter how cornered, no matter how alone, afraid, or weakened, the wolf will continue. She will lope even with a broken leg. She will go near others seeking the protection of the pack. She will strenuously outwait, outwit, outrun and outlast whatever is bedevilling her. She will put her all into taking breath after breath.

She will drag herself, if necessary, from place to place till she finds a good place, a healing place, a place for thriving.

The hallmark of the wild nature is that it goes on.

So, if women must, they will paint blue sky on jail walls. If the skeins are burnt they will spin more. If the harvest is destroyed they will sow more immediately. Women will draw doors where there are none and open them and pass through into new ways and new lives.

Because the wild nature persists and prevails, women persist and prevail.”

~Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With The Wolves.

art | Nadia Alenov

It reminded me of a poem I wrote months ago this summer when I was marveling at the strength of the women (even the young ones) who live in my neighborhood, the ferocity and love we bring when we show up for each other during times of crisis. I called it Women Running Barefoot, ironically without Dr. Pinkola Estes’ title at the top of my mind, and I’ll share it with you today.

Women Running Barefoot

We get the call
Read the text
Hear the snap

And we do not pause,
Our feet moving without our conscious instruction
As our bodies immediately respond.

Barefoot into the street
Running down the block
Into the emergency room
Clutching our child and unaware that we are not wearing shoes.

We sprint across the street
At the word “flood,”
We hear tears on the other end of the line
And it doesn’t matter that it’s past midnight.

We text the rest
And meet on the sidewalk
Everybody barefoot,
Some without bras or even pants.

We are here,
I’ve got you; are you good?
You’ve got me
Together, we have all of them.

We laugh in our circle
Under the moonlight
The men are asleep or already gone.
And when we called to them,
They said it wasn’t their business.

Rocks dig into our feet
We lock eyes and clasp hands
Confirm we are all okay
And return inside to our homes.

XOXO,
Steph

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