Get Me the F*ck Out of Here
a musing on walking away versus walking forward
the following is mostly excerpts from my journal that are mostly unedited and mostly in order
I’m on the other side of my annual trip to Maine with my best friend. Every year I and a different configuration of our friends join her in spending some beautiful, connective time at the lake house her great-grandfather built. It’s my most favorite thing I do all year and, in some ways, has come to feel like my personal New Years celebration.
Every year, I find myself in a place where I’m sitting with something big: big ideas, big feelings, big problems; and Maine is where I can slow all the way down and find some clarity. It’s a precious “return to self” moment for me.
I feel the winds of change starting to kick up in my life in different places. Friends are moving and having children, my partnership is deepening, my business is expanding. It’s all good change. And nonetheless, it’s scary. Scary to face the unknown and new, and scary to not know how I’ll do over there in the next version of my life.
I’m constantly talking about getting out of the city and moving somewhere more starry-sky style. I wax poetic about my vision for the space I want to create, the home I want to build, the airstreams I want to renovate, the horses I want to ride, the early mornings I want to savor, and the haven I want to create for my community. But the possibility that this vision could be brought into reality, that this could be a version of my life, has been unbelievable.
These are some of the things my body brought with us to Maine this year.
I’m finally back in my favorite spot on the porch in Maine. I have my coffee and the little chipmunks are clicking and clucking and attending to their morning matters. The mist of the early morning is slowly dissipating across the lake’s surface. And it all feels right. A squirrel is dropping nuts from the tall trees and the morning light illuminates them with a warm, golden glow. It’s a breezeless day, sunny and warm. September truly is such a special time here. I will never stop being grateful to M for sharing this with me and allowing it to be a part of my life.
I want Matt to experience me in this element and know me in this way. I want him to see this part of me and understand why I want to live more in this space than outside of it. It just feels so good for me. I feel so much closer to myself when I’m here. And there’s a dishwasher.
Matt and I both enjoy nature, though admittedly he’s much more of a woodsman than I. But we haven’t yet spent any time together out in the woods so we haven’t had the opportunity to see those more primitive, wild, feral parts of each other. You’d better believe I started a little folder of trip ideas for us while I was on that porch.
Currently, I’m sitting on the throne rock in the woods out on the point with an adorable tiny picnic basket for one. I made an Italian-style sandwich and I have a Spindrift and a peanut butter cup and a tiny spliff I rolled for myself with my great-grandmother’s portable mini-ashtray. Eating the sandwich, feeling my teeth sink into it and the different textures as I chew through big mouthfuls. Literally moaning as I let the mustard and juices collect around my mouth. Instead of my usual chronic napkin dabbing, I run my tongue around my lips and mouth to lick up any leftovers.
It doesn’t matter that I tore the knee of my favorite leggings while climbing up on this rock. In fact, just this morning I was going on and on to T about how I’ve finally found the perfect comfort legging and how much I love them. I felt a wave of annoyance and immediately started problem-solving about how I could order a new pair now and they’d be waiting for me when I got home. And just a moment later I felt the sun’s rays, on my skin and in my solar plexus, and knew that I was so happy to be up here where I am that it truly doesn’t fucking matter.
I still haven’t ordered new leggings.
By necessity, if you’re moving toward something you’re moving away from something else. I can’t bring it all with me. What I can bring with me is the feeling of being in D&P’s backyard and 2am chopped cheeses and getting last minute tickets for Broadway shows. But the grief of not having them, being left only with the memory of a life that will look shinier and shiner as the years pass and difficulties arise, that is not a tantalizing reality. So I stay. I stay until some unknowable, mysterious, cosmic, perfect other thing presents itself to me which it almost never does. And when it does it’s because I’ve already started to take action toward the thing I do want. That’s when the universe starts dropping things for me.
But trusting that one of those drops will be the best fucking people in the whole world to be surrounded by is really hard to do and going from being able to casually see your friends at the next social gathering to having to coordinate and carve out time to keep up with all your different connections… it’s just easier to stay. And it doesn’t get you going anywhere. This is the knife’s edge that I’ve been balancing upon for years and it’s gotten sharper and sharper every year, especially after Maine.
I need to keep being mindful about letting these moments seep into my body as much as possible because… object permanence. And because I want to remember them, deeply and strongly, for my whole life.
I’ve never found a way to adequately express how incredible my friends are. They’re brilliant, beautiful, passionate, emotionally intelligent, supportive, kind, loving humans. Just their presence in my life has been deeply healing for me, not to mention all of the girl dinners, group chats, camping trips, holidays, and all manner of hangs where I have felt held and accepted and resourced by them. Understandably, the idea of charting a course that takes me further from them has been an unpalatable thought for me. And it’s all happened in NYC, where the whole world is at your fingertips.
Evening is beginning to set in and the crickets’ song no longer carries the chirpy exuberance of the morning. They have taken on their night’s song and I know the loons will chime in soon. M is out on the kayak and waving to people from the porch is such a fuckin’ VIBE.
The spaciousness I experience here is needed more in my everyday life. Where TV feels like a treat and not an assumed part of the evening. Where we’re surrounded by facets of life that hold our attention and nervous systems differently. Where it’s less easy to distract ourselves from the parts we’re avoiding and where we have the space to go there. Just go to bed when you’re tired. Do what you want to and listen to your body.
Imagine if I were to take a vacation and the change of pace I was seeking was for a city? Something faster to take a break from all the slowness and spaciousness. All the trips I’ve been on have been a means to slow down and shut off and finally relax. What if I were just relaxed? Normally. My regular state of being could be: relaxed. What a novel idea.
This has felt like a moment of clarity for me to want the things that I want for myself and my life and I’ve been so good at getting hooked on all the reasons why it’s not okay for me to want it. It’s the first thing that came out in Morning Pages when I did the Artist’s Way. The “can’t have it” stories are bountiful and convincing. I still believe some of them.
My best ideas are my creative ones. The ones that pop into my mind in a nearly fully-formed, ready-to-go way that makes me wonder how my subconscious does it. Playful and creative, that’s my intuition's personality. My earthly self is grounded in reality, practical and efficient and problem-solving. My spirit self is the other bit, and I really love the balanced combo they are which makes me who I am. And I need to feed and resource them both.
Rather than setting New Year’s resolutions, I aim myself at how I want to feel in the next year. This year, my words were balance and flow. There’s more work to do, and I feel tremendously more balanced than I did in January. I’m starting to settle into a flow that feels aligned, sustainable, and that makes me happy. What I didn’t realize was there was a roadblock in my self-trust, and I have no idea what will happen if I trust my intuitive sense to flow in the direction of leaving New York. Most of my therapeutic journey has related back to bringing my extremist thinking into balance. This has looked like learning how to hold duality, listening to all my extreme parts and finding contentment in the grey area, and getting comfortable in liminal space. The spot I find myself in now reflects all of this: being happy in my life and wanting something different at the same time, feeling scared of how extreme it feels to pick up and leave my home and telling myself that the new version of Meryl doesn’t “blow her life up” like that anymore, and the deep discomfort around not being able to plan for an (as of yet) unknown future.
I don’t believe it was an accident that we were in Maine for the supermoon and partial lunar eclipse.
There was so much movement in the sky, just so many magical elements. Not the least of which was after we packed up and rounded the corner to return to the cars only to see the gigantic supermoon hanging low in the sky over the dock. Seeing the sunset and the moonrise happen together was an acute and astute representation of the balance and ability to hold duality that I’m seeking. In some ways, it felt like this moon was meant just for me.
This morning, I did a reading for myself with my newly charged deck. Both times I’ve opened this deck I’ve seen the High Priestess: reveals secret knowledge to initiates who have earned the right, ancient mysteries, pillars inscribed with B&J the qualities of duality: dark & light, endings & beginnings - wisdom lies between these extremes. Okay girl, chill.
We’ve arrived at the final morning on the lake and, as usual, I’m nowhere near ready to tear myself away. One of my big takeaways this year has been around how it has felt to arrive on land that I am familiar with and that my body knows. It lives inside me somewhere now.
I remember being a child and feeling some kind of relationship with the land my home was on. I named all the trees in the backyard and felt deeply for them. I was devastated when Cherry was removed by landscapers. I still feel that loss somewhere inside me. It feels important for me to return to that part of myself. The Little Farmer. The Horse Girl. It’s who I was before so much other stuff happened. It’s the little girl who didn’t like to wear lace collars and only wore cotton and wore her socks inside out because she didn’t like the seams. It feels so, so good to feel her here. I feel harmony in my system. And I want to tend to and come to know my own piece of land on this earth.
Momentum gives balance purpose. Otherwise we’re just standing still. Let’s see what comes next.
Re-reading and typing this out, I feel the tears of truth welling up. This really is how I feel, damn. Except on the other side of my experience in Maine this year, I feel more sure of what I really want. And the desire to be fully present in the experience of my life has illuminated how much time I’ve been spending in the “get me the fuck out of here” mindset instead of “wow, my life is fucking awesome.” A few days after my return, I was texting a friend doing a brief catchup. When I responded to their question of how I’m doing, my answer was beautiful and reflective of all the exciting things I’m doing and how happy I am with my arrival at this moment of my life. And that’s where I want to spend most of my time. And I will have great practice in holding duality as I reframe to: My life is beautiful and I’m so happy. And I’m ready for the next thing and am excited to get there.