Almost Heaven
There's this cover of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" performed by a female group called Mountain Man.
I can't tell you why, maybe it's the way the chords are strung together or how beautiful their voices sound together, but this version, this one in particular, always makes me cry. It's just that good. (And now you know that my scoring system for how great I think a song is includes its ability to make me cry... listen, we've all got our flaws here, folks).
This version of this tune makes me feel this sort of sentimental, nostalgic puzzle-like feeling. You ever felt like that? Like you're trying to piece together parts of your past, and figure out just exactly how X and Y met to get you to Z? Or maybe how Q and R met to get you to S which is a whole other fucked up land of its own because no one actually makes it to Z in this lifetime, right? Except when you like, I dunno, die?
I didn't recognize I was grieving until I said it. Out loud. In the open. And let that seemingly small vocal acknowledgment of my feelings float into the atmosphere and become real. And then it was real. And then feelings started to pour out of me in really terrifying ways. In the last few weeks, I've experienced feelings of extreme panic, anxiety, sadness, anger, and confusion that I have never known. Or at least I thought I knew them, but then these feelings came along and gave my old grief a run for its money.
Grief is funny like that. You think you've done the things to grieve the loss of whatever it was -- the place, the job, the person -- all to find out that while some parts of this life may seem linear and straightforward, grief dresses like the asshat hick kids from high school in head to toe camo and just shows up whenever necessary. Read that last word, because it's important... necessary.
You see, from what I know to be true about this life, and let's be clear here... I'm 24 years old. I have not seen some of the things in this life that you all have. But I have seen a lot of things that have warranted and required grief. I know grief intimately. I have had to grieve places, a lot of people, and more versions of myself than I can count on two hands. So, what I know to be true is that grief -- often disguised as panic, anxiety, and anger for myself -- rears its head when it's time. You won't know that it's time until you feel it. Not until the sinking in your chest comes or the thing that never used to trigger you suddenly does or you're crying out of nowhere because some memory in your psyche has resurfaced and now you're seeing the face of someone you once knew so vividly in your head that you sleep on the couch instead with a 25 pound fucking weighted blanket as your roommate literally tucks you in and talks you down from a panic attack. I am spitballing here.
Grief will come along when you are ready to process it. And sometimes that takes days, weeks, years. And when you are ready, you won't even know it. But grief will be there, waiting. It will be there ready for you because really, in the grand scheme of things, grief just wants to be our friend. Grief just wants us to find our way down the road of life without the thing we thought we needed so we can get to the thing that we deserve. And grief just wants us to be able to carry on as best we can without that person, place, thing. So it stays. It stays until we are ready, until we let it in. Until we willingly open the door and invite it in to sit down for a cup of coffee and a conversation over the morning paper.
Oddly, in the last few weeks, I have known several people who have been experiencing some deep grief. And the other day, I had a friend ask how she could best support a loved one who was experiencing some grief from a tragic loss. I think this is interesting, because her asking me for guidance forced me to get honest with myself on how I was allowing my grief to be present in my own existence. Because it is present right now. And our challenge as humans is to let it be there. Without shoving it down, without numbing it with booze or other humans or apps or whatever. It has to co-exist with us. And in my humble opinion, grief co-exists with us our entire lives. It never actually fully leaves. We just become more resilient, and better able to withstand the absence of what it was that we lost.
I had the privilege of meeting a new friend a couple of weeks back who is a fitness instructor in L.A. He taught a class that I was fortunate to be apart of, and during class, he asked a question that hit me like a shitload of bricks. He asked, "what if what broke your heart actually fixed your vision?"
I guess this is the part where I tell you that the same sentimental, nostalgic puzzle-like feeling that I hear during my favorite cover of "Country Roads" came right on into my heart. And it just sat there. And I sat with that question. I still do, day after day. But I don't really try to piece the puzzle together. Because what broke my heart, what I am in the process of grieving, it did fix my vision. This I know to be true. My heartbreak and the puzzle pieces of my past led me from a small town of 5,000 in eastern Iowa to a stationary bike in New York City in which a stranger asked me if I recognized and understood that my heartbreak changed my world for the better. And it did. My heart was ripped open and trampled over by someone else because I had to learn what a beautiful gift it is to be alone. And what a beautiful gift it is that I had a heart that loved so hard that it did break.
Do you recognize and understand how many people go through this lifetime with a heart so closed that they don't actually have an intimate understanding of heartbreak? It's a helluva lot. And goddamn it, I refuse to be one of them. I would rather have a heart that is open and has been broken over and over than have a heart closed off from humanity and the endless possibilities of love that are in each given day we're on this planet.
My heart break fixed my vision. My grief has cracked me open. And here is where I'd like to stay. John Denver was referencing West Virginia when he said "almost heaven." I'm referencing an open heart. But I dunno, West Virginia might be nice, too.
I can't tell you why, maybe it's the way the chords are strung together or how beautiful their voices sound together, but this version, this one in particular, always makes me cry. It's just that good. (And now you know that my scoring system for how great I think a song is includes its ability to make me cry... listen, we've all got our flaws here, folks).
This version of this tune makes me feel this sort of sentimental, nostalgic puzzle-like feeling. You ever felt like that? Like you're trying to piece together parts of your past, and figure out just exactly how X and Y met to get you to Z? Or maybe how Q and R met to get you to S which is a whole other fucked up land of its own because no one actually makes it to Z in this lifetime, right? Except when you like, I dunno, die?
I didn't recognize I was grieving until I said it. Out loud. In the open. And let that seemingly small vocal acknowledgment of my feelings float into the atmosphere and become real. And then it was real. And then feelings started to pour out of me in really terrifying ways. In the last few weeks, I've experienced feelings of extreme panic, anxiety, sadness, anger, and confusion that I have never known. Or at least I thought I knew them, but then these feelings came along and gave my old grief a run for its money.
Grief is funny like that. You think you've done the things to grieve the loss of whatever it was -- the place, the job, the person -- all to find out that while some parts of this life may seem linear and straightforward, grief dresses like the asshat hick kids from high school in head to toe camo and just shows up whenever necessary. Read that last word, because it's important... necessary.
You see, from what I know to be true about this life, and let's be clear here... I'm 24 years old. I have not seen some of the things in this life that you all have. But I have seen a lot of things that have warranted and required grief. I know grief intimately. I have had to grieve places, a lot of people, and more versions of myself than I can count on two hands. So, what I know to be true is that grief -- often disguised as panic, anxiety, and anger for myself -- rears its head when it's time. You won't know that it's time until you feel it. Not until the sinking in your chest comes or the thing that never used to trigger you suddenly does or you're crying out of nowhere because some memory in your psyche has resurfaced and now you're seeing the face of someone you once knew so vividly in your head that you sleep on the couch instead with a 25 pound fucking weighted blanket as your roommate literally tucks you in and talks you down from a panic attack. I am spitballing here.
Grief will come along when you are ready to process it. And sometimes that takes days, weeks, years. And when you are ready, you won't even know it. But grief will be there, waiting. It will be there ready for you because really, in the grand scheme of things, grief just wants to be our friend. Grief just wants us to find our way down the road of life without the thing we thought we needed so we can get to the thing that we deserve. And grief just wants us to be able to carry on as best we can without that person, place, thing. So it stays. It stays until we are ready, until we let it in. Until we willingly open the door and invite it in to sit down for a cup of coffee and a conversation over the morning paper.
Oddly, in the last few weeks, I have known several people who have been experiencing some deep grief. And the other day, I had a friend ask how she could best support a loved one who was experiencing some grief from a tragic loss. I think this is interesting, because her asking me for guidance forced me to get honest with myself on how I was allowing my grief to be present in my own existence. Because it is present right now. And our challenge as humans is to let it be there. Without shoving it down, without numbing it with booze or other humans or apps or whatever. It has to co-exist with us. And in my humble opinion, grief co-exists with us our entire lives. It never actually fully leaves. We just become more resilient, and better able to withstand the absence of what it was that we lost.
I had the privilege of meeting a new friend a couple of weeks back who is a fitness instructor in L.A. He taught a class that I was fortunate to be apart of, and during class, he asked a question that hit me like a shitload of bricks. He asked, "what if what broke your heart actually fixed your vision?"
I guess this is the part where I tell you that the same sentimental, nostalgic puzzle-like feeling that I hear during my favorite cover of "Country Roads" came right on into my heart. And it just sat there. And I sat with that question. I still do, day after day. But I don't really try to piece the puzzle together. Because what broke my heart, what I am in the process of grieving, it did fix my vision. This I know to be true. My heartbreak and the puzzle pieces of my past led me from a small town of 5,000 in eastern Iowa to a stationary bike in New York City in which a stranger asked me if I recognized and understood that my heartbreak changed my world for the better. And it did. My heart was ripped open and trampled over by someone else because I had to learn what a beautiful gift it is to be alone. And what a beautiful gift it is that I had a heart that loved so hard that it did break.
Do you recognize and understand how many people go through this lifetime with a heart so closed that they don't actually have an intimate understanding of heartbreak? It's a helluva lot. And goddamn it, I refuse to be one of them. I would rather have a heart that is open and has been broken over and over than have a heart closed off from humanity and the endless possibilities of love that are in each given day we're on this planet.
My heart break fixed my vision. My grief has cracked me open. And here is where I'd like to stay. John Denver was referencing West Virginia when he said "almost heaven." I'm referencing an open heart. But I dunno, West Virginia might be nice, too.
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