Out Of Sight

The ease of hiding.

You’d be surprised at how easy it is to hide within a charity.

I know this because I founded one in 2009. I was rather young and audacious enough to believe I could make a difference, while being naive to the amount of work involved in fighting the illness that caused my mother’s suffering. I told myself to show up, and I did. I still do.

In its decade of success, one could think I’ve become a bleeding heart dripping with connection and openness. The truth is that I’m guarded in many ways—cautious of deep connections and avoidant of diving in with those like myself who carry around the effects of chronic illness like a coat of armor. To be frank, being vulnerable makes a knot of prickles swell within my chest. 

I blame my mother, though it’s not her fault.

She didn’t want to get diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). It is something that happened to her. And as her daughter, it happened to me, too. And because of it, there are plenty of symptoms that I experience: detachment, headstrong, hyper-independence, individualistic. Much of who I am is in relation to the undeniable awareness that my mother was sick and she couldn’t care for herself, much less me.

After all, if I couldn’t depend on my mother, who in this life can I depend on?

Drop me into a personal/business/emotional crisis and I’m ready to go, fighting like a lion to rise. I’m quite exceptional at it—taking action, problem solving, doing—these are all things that I’ve learned to count on. They’re all within my control.

It’s the thought of asking for help that causes me to be anxious, to overthink the angles, to worry about the various outcomes to an extent that convinces me that it’s best just to handle it myself. You know, I really can do this myself, I’ll think. I’m not quite to the point of needing someone else just yet. The last thing I want is this person feeling like they have to coddle me through this challenge. I hate coddling. They’re busy, everyone has their own problems and they don’t need mine, too. Will they really be able to help or am I just complaining? 

After years of practice, it hardly takes much to convince myself to shoulder my burdens alone. 

So, this is me opening up, writing my first post with a tangle of thorns within my chest, anxious at the thought of not having a shiny, finished project to present. 

That project is my book. My story. The defining thesis to my life to-date.

For over four years, I’ve spent an exceptional amount of time writing a memoir about running 3,288 miles across America for my mother. I completed the manuscript and its multiple revisions in the spring of 2022, but I don’t have a literary agent or publisher yet. The fact that I’m telling you this is significant because I hadn’t intended on saying anything about my manuscript status until I was in contract—a grand, sparkly announcement in which I could say that I had finished my book and someone already wanted it. 

I raced across the finish line of my fourth revision last spring with the vigor of a thoroughbred. I was proud of the work I had done and excited about the results. Truly excited. The writing astounded me at times and I was ready to get my words into the hands of a publisher until I found myself walking east on a cement path one April morning, crying to a friend on the phone. Whatever was causing the anguish, I couldn’t quite put into words—except that I had the insurmountable feeling that there was too much work ahead of me and not enough drive to get me there. The revisions were done. I was onto the next step toward publishing. Yet, the thought of sitting at my computer trying to pitch my book made my insides rumble. Sand filled my lungs. My skin prickled. I finally had the product and couldn’t pitch it. What was wrong? Why couldn’t I do this next part? I felt like a failure, avoiding the work of producing the end result. Like I was the kind of person that was proud of saying I was writing a book, but not one that was willing to do the brave, hard thing of actually getting it published.  

Since then, I’ve discovered that nothing was wrong, except that I needed a break. I hadn’t truly given myself the credit that was due: the acknowledgement (and acceptance) that writing, revising, and editing this story of my life—and the deep excavation that went into it—had taken its toll. That doing this work was a p.r.o.c.e.s.s. A hard process that might include a pause. And because pausing is something we’re not exactly taught or encouraged to do, I needed to grow into it.

And so, at the prompting of my friend, I set the book and much of my nonprofit responsibilities down and let myself be. Notifications were silenced. The inbox ticker grew. And I floated idly within a space somewhere between not giving a fuck and hoping that I would again. 

Slowly, over many months, I felt pieces of myself return. A social, light, outward self that I thought was shrinking due to age and family and circumstances but was really just making room for the entrepreneur writer. And soon, to my great relief, I found myself wanting to connect. To talk with people again and truly care what was being said. To work within community, rather than on my own as I had been. It’s been a challenging few years for me, and I know all too well that only seeing the best of someone’s life can create the illusion that it’s not a struggle. There’s been struggles—abrasive, hurtful, infuriating struggles in which I’ve grown more than I intended to and fought for my footing. I found it.

So, here I am, bringing you into my unfinished project(s)—publishing my book among other challenging life endeavors that I feel like writing about (like scaling my nonprofit, how the hell to have a great family life, and staying committed to wellness). My feeling is that I have more questions than answers, but my hope is that you’ll join me. That you’ll share your challenges, too, and together we’ll find a supportive tribe among the vast crowd of strangers on the internet.