One of my favorite quotes of all time is from one of my favorite books of all time, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. I first read this classic American novel as a junior in high school, again as a senior in college and once since. This novel that ends with “So much of life is in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see,” had a profound impact on me each time I read it, with every new reading seeming to awaken a different part of me that hadn’t quite developed yet. But the line I will remember and carry with me always is “there are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
As a young(er) adult, I often reread this line and thought, WHEN? WHERE are those years that answer? I got pretty tired of the ones that asked the questions. Always new questions. Different questions. Additional parts to old questions. But no answers. Alright … to be fair there were some answers. But I didn’t like them. They required me to put my pride aside and be a better person. They wanted me to learn lessons and apply them to my life. And they definitely weren’t quick or convenient (Note: these are two extremely important qualities in life lessons before you hit age 30, or even 35 or …).
To make matters worse (or at least more dramatic for the purpose of this blog entry), during the rough times with my ex-husband it seemed as if answers were even more fleeting. I told myself repeatedly there had to be a reason why out of all the billions of men in the world I chose to marry this one. I chose to say “I do” right before “til death do us part” in front our closest friends and family. There had to be a reason why both of us Floridians ended up in the Evergreen state, more than 3,000 miles away, right? He was the only man who would ever look at me that way, right? Would there ever be anyone who would love me as much as he did? There couldn’t be. Right?
Oh how the facade of logic can do us wrong. And oh how wrong I was. But as cliché as it sounds, I do believe it helps to be wrong every once in a while, or maybe more often than that. When you hear the dreaded “I told you so,” sometimes it’s best to smile and say “yes, but I needed to find out on my own. I needed to ask the questions and discover the answers on my terms.” The important thing is that we do discover those answers. When we’re ready.
Did I mention that it happens when we’re ready? This may be when our friends and loved ones would like us to discover them, a convenient time and place for everyone. Or it may be 20 years later. It may be before we hurt people, or procreate, or lose all the money we saved for our kids’ educations. Or it may be after a really terrible sequence of events that finally snaps us back into reality. It may be before we take the plunge and say “I do.” Or maybe not. Eventually, however, no matter the crooked path they travel, these answers do, sometimes very gradually, find their way into our heads.
Now that I’ve begun to find answers, I see them everywhere. And this, not surprisingly, generates even more questions. I keep confiding in friends that I’m scared. I have stumbled upon such genuine happiness that I’m petrified it’s going to slip through my hands. I’m terrified that it’s too good to be true. So many wonderful and fulfilling things have been thrown at me that I can only think it’s in preparation for a giant bucket of heartache. Now I’ve never really been the glass-half-full type, but this is extreme.
Yesterday, as I waited while the amazing man in my life cooked pancakes for breakfast, I was filled with gratitude. I was honestly overflowing with contentment as I sat drinking my coffee and I glanced over at the kids watching Sunday morning cartoons. Now let’s keep in mind that these kids are TEENAGERS! And these teenagers, this new insta-family package of father, son, daughter, dog AND cat – seems to be one big giant answer to a plethora of earlier-posed questions.
In the words of David Byrne and his Talking Heads, how did I get here? Did I ever picture myself here? No. Did I ever ponder a situation resembling anything like this? Can’t say I did. Did I search for a ready-made package of happiness that I could easily install without assistance? Nope. Because I didn’t think it existed. And if it did, I certainly wouldn’t be lucky enough to locate it. And make it mine. Does it make me happier than I truly thought possible? Without a doubt.
When I question my friends about how on earth this all came to be, the general consensus is that I deserve it. I earned it. I took all those years of questions, questions and more questions and carved out answers I can actually use. I opened myself up to a situation that quite simply -- revolves around happiness. When faced with the same old dilemmas, I updated my responses. I made new, different decisions. And that made all the difference.
Albert Einstein once said, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Indeed. Trying the same thing over and over again IS crazy. Banging our heads against the wall to find answers just doesn’t work. I think we’ll all be better off when we acknowledge that questions will never cease. And it’s healthy to keep asking them, as long as we have faith that the answers will never cease either … when we are good and ready. I must say that Einstein was on to something.
