My Mantra

Those who know me will tell you that if I had a mantra in life, it is that Life is Perfect. The first time I tell a new client or acquaintance this mantra, I am always amused at the look of bewilderment in their eyes when I tell them “I believe that life is perfect”. I see the furrow appear on their brow, a slight smirk on their lips, and in their eyes, the questions that percolate inside of them. And the waiting…the waiting for the punch line. After a beat, perhaps a beat too long, I continue by saying “you just don’t always know it at the time”.

I believe this to be true from the evidence I’ve collected over 4 decades. The heartaches, the joys, the frustrations, the disappointments, the boredom, the despair, the yearning, the trials and tribulations that led me to be the woman that stands before you. Without all of them, I would not be the woman I am today. And since I love who I’ve become, I cannot believe anything other than Life is Perfect. Imperfectly perfect, mind you, yet perfect nonetheless.

If you had asked me 20 years ago if Life was Perfect, I certainly would have a slew of evidence to the contrary. 20 years ago, I believed that life was unfair. I believed, despite my many, many blessings (mind you, ones I couldn’t see at the time), that I was dealt a hand of cards that made winning an impossible feat. I surrounded myself with many people that believed that mantra, too. Those around me who shared a different mantra, who wanted more for me, were simply Polyannas in my view. It was easier for them, I thought, because they were dealt a far more desirable deck of cards. My comparison gremlin believed that I simply pulled the short stick when it came to life.

There were several poignant moments in my life that slowly started to shift my perspective. I continue to shift every day, because frankly, there are days that I definitely don’t think that life is perfect. However, I have gathered enough evidence to the contrary that my moments of “life pretty much sucks” come fewer and farther between, and certainly only for a few hours or a day, before I can return to the mantra that has served me so well over the last 20 years.

The first time I realized this was about a year after my best friend, Leslie, killed herself when she was 19 and I was 20. The year before her death, I had spent a glorious year studying abroad in Italy. I discovered who I was that year, without the constraints of who I’d always been up to that point. A new country, a new language, differentiated from my family and the friends that so defined me up to that point. I started to discover who I really was, when everything I always knew lay 8,000 miles away. 20 years ago, there was no internet, no email, no Skype, and limited phone accessibility unless you were willing to pay $3 a minute to call home. Leslie called me several times that year, leaving messages I couldn’t afford to return. Snail mail was the only way we connected for the 10 months I lived so far away. Upon returning to the States, I was only home for 10 days before I was scheduled to work at the Summer Camp I had attended as a child. Leslie and I spent almost every day and night together when I was home, feverishly catching up on all that we had missed in each other’s lives. Yet it was clear the dynamic had shifted. I could tell that she felt small in comparison to all the things I had learned, experienced and discovered that year. I had found unbridled joy in the year that I lived abroad, for the first time since I was a little girl. On my last night in Connecticut. before heading north to the Adirondacks, I spent the day and evening with my other closest friend who I hadn’t seen all week. In Leslie’s eyes, since I was spending my last night with my other friend, this meant I valued her more than I valued Leslie and Leslie was furious with me. Before heading off in the morning, I went by the YMCA, where she worked as a lifeguard, to try to talk with her but she wouldn’t speak to me. She wouldn’t even look at me. I left for the Summer with my best friend not speaking to me and feeling both unappreciated and unloved by me. Sixteen days later, I received the call that she was dead. Having got up for work that morning, she went into the garage with her bathing suit and sunblock already applied, started her jeep and decided to leave the door closed. She left no note, as if she just looked at her life before her and said “I just can’t do it anymore”.

For a good 6 months, I wallowed in my sorrow and guilt. I felt somehow responsible for what had happened. I felt I could have prevented it. This was, by far, the lowest I have ever felt in my life. I thought many, many times in that 6 months that it should have been me that died. I wanted to die and escape this enormous pain that haunted me. Thankfully, I had good friends who, out of their concern, had an intervention with me. As a result, I saw a therapist for the first time, and in addition to beginning to heal the wounds of Leslie’s death, I began to heal other wounds that had been affecting me for a long, long time. It is when I first began to realize that there is a gift in everything. Leslie’s death forced me to go to therapy and gave me the chance to live a different life than I had up until that point. I realized through my therapy that Leslie and I bonded over our misery and that it could have easily been me that had chosen her path. It was a huge wake up call and I realized that Leslie had given me an immeasurable gift – the gift of life. I swore from that day forward, that I would squeeze every drop out of life and to look for the gift in everything, knowing that there always, always has been a gift for me in every hard and even tragic thing that has happened in my life.
Mind you, finding the gift in everything is often a journey. Sometimes it has been a long one for me, and other times, a shorter one. I find, thankfully, that the more I have been open to seeing the gift in things, the easier it is to see them. One of my favorite stories I tell my clients is what I call “The Pony in The Poop” story. Two brothers go to spend their summer on their Uncle’s farm. The Uncle quickly puts them to work , shucking out the stalls that have accumulated all winter. They were literally in 3 feet of sawdust thick with urine and manure. One brother took one sniff and one look at the situation and thought to himself “this is going to be the worst Summer EVER”. He starts shucking out the stalls, swearing under his breath, complaining about the rotten lot in life that he has been dealt. Then he looks over at his brother who is working swiftly, whistling a tune as he worked. The first brother says “what are YOU so happy about?” to which his brother replies “With all this poop, there has to be a pony in here somewhere!”. And so you have it, my friends. It is all the way you look at things.

There is no doubt that Leslie’s death left an indelible mark on my life. I easily could have let that mark be the story that evoked violins playing in the background and pity from the people that heard the story, or worse, been justification for ending my own life (as several other people we went to High School with did in the months to follow). I am so grateful that I made a different choice. It took a tremendous amount of support and love to change that story and one thing I realized through that experience is that I could not have made a different choice without the support, love and encouragement from others in my life. Do I wish more than anything that I could go back and change what happened? Absolutely. And I’ve also learned so poignantly that regret is always about things we think we have no power to change. I cannot undo Leslie’s death. And I have also learned that the highest and best way to honor her life, is by learning from her and be a better person for the sacrifice she made. I am eternally grateful to her, as I believe that her death saved my life and has inspired me to help others create a life they love. And so Life is Perfect…you just don’t always know it at the time.