Today the glands under my jaw are swollen like golf balls. I have taken the day off to recover from whatever virus I have, resigning myself to reading in bed and puttering at the computer with hot tea in hand.
Perhaps I caught the virus at work this past week, but I've heard that it takes about 10 days for viruses to percolate in one's system. I've also heard that planes are good places to catch viruses. Ten days ago I was on a flight to Yellowknife. So there it is, and I am now processing both the virus from the trip and the trip itself.
There is an old but wise cliché that says it's better to regret things one has done than the things one hasn't done. This trip to Yellowknife has brought this cliché to surface, as I try to remind myself of all the reasons it was good to go back after almost two years of having been away – despite that my heart aches like hell. I don't know if we can benefit from measuring the quality or value of our experiences by how much suffering they cause. Many times we devalue experiences that cause us heartache, when really they are opportunities of major growth and personal insight.
My original decision to travel to Yellowknife, where I had spent 4 years of my life, was predicated on a need to attend a friend's wedding. It was important to me not only to be in attendance of an important life event of a dear friend, but as a person who had witnessed first-hand this woman's ascent into much deserved happiness with the man of her dreams. On the other hand, I deeply needed to see my cats, who I had left behind in Yellowknife a few years ago with my ex in my move to Edmonton from the house we used to own together. Never a day has gone by that I have not missed them, or remembered what it feels like to cuddle them and hold them precious to me like any mother would her children. I did not realize upon crafting my plans to visit Yellowknife how I might feel once there. That I would feel like a stranger, that my friend would not have time to visit with me at her wedding, that I would have to endure heart-break once again at saying goodbye to my cats without their understanding of the situation (where I have been, and that I would once again disappear). I did not foresee that I would feel alienated, that I don't belong – in Yellowknife nor in the life of my cats.
I keep thinking back to my arrival at the Yellowknife airport. I had arranged for a car rental, and so wandered in the airport like the visitor I was (despite that it was often the launching point for many an adventure, and my home harbour for four years), looking for the rental outlet. When I finally got my car, I felt as if I were on wings, and I flew through the surreal landscape of my old neighbourhood with only one thing in mind: to see my furry beloveds. My ex had generously left me the key to the house so that I could visit them alone, and I sped there to see them as a lover to a doomed but exhilarating clandestine meeting.
Walking through the front door was just as surreal as the drive through my old neighborhood to the house. Almost everything looked the same. No walls had been painted a different color, pictures on the wall hadn't been replaced, furniture was in its old place. New things had found their way in, but the old remained, too, lulling me into an old familiarity without the warmth it used to hold for me. Without hesitation, I immediately called Puss and Lumpy like I always did, like I've been yearning to do for the years I've been away. They both came running from the bedroom, attendant but with expressions of curiosity, too. My heart leapt. But where Puss would usually throw herself down before me on the carpet to have her belly rubbed, she only calmly sat, looking up at me without appearing the least amused. Lumpy parked himself close by, half awake and wondering what all the fuss was about. It was all so strange – the same but so different – and time was slipping through my fingers and stealing moments from me as they arose. Those moments I tried to commit to memory so I would never forget: brushing Puss' coat, feeding them treats, putting my head to Lumpy's fur while he lay in the sun and feeling his body rise and fall with each breath. Unfortunately the painful moments are committed to memory too: Puss not letting me brush her, then hissing and growling and running away, just to come back for more minutes later. Though she used to be mine and would tolerate me holding her in my arms like a little baby, things had changed, washed away with the tides. I found I could not hold her like that any longer without looking down at a growling cat that threatens of her growing unease in my arms.
I realize now that the two hours I had spent there, right at the forefront of my trip, was my undoing for the remainder of my visit. To walk away from a house that used to be mine, to cats that my heart has claimed as children, and to all the other nameless things that I used to claim as mine, placed me in a stark and barren realm where I was stranger. I came to Yellowknife as a stranger, and I have now left there as a stranger – even to those I love.
The cracks started showing almost immediately. Upon leaving the house, I tried using my regular car keys to start the rental car, which kept me puzzled for five minutes in the driveway until my ex (who had visited me there over his lunch) came over to help identify the problem. I think I held up well at the wedding that evening, but as the night wore on, I could not bring myself to dance or make any more small chat with people I didn't know. The smiling face that I wore all day started feeling like more of a mask to the strangers around me. The happiness I felt for my friend's good fortune was not enough to bail me out of my imminent sense of loss.
My friend Anne shepherded me back into the light the next day as we lunched together and rehashed, to the best of our ability, the past two years. We laughed, we shared, and we conspired as we had done before for the whole day through. It was what I needed, and I was grateful. She escorted me all the way to the airport, and sat with me some more there, too. She did all this without knowing the loss I was feeling, without being told of the place that I would sink to if left to sit alone in a world that used to be my home. She continues to be an angel in my life.
And so I landed back in Edmonton only a day after my launch into the old world, still feeling a little heavy. For the first time I got lost coming from the Edmonton airport – twice I drove off into nowhere. Maybe it was the dark and lonely part of myself slipping into a greater void, wanting to continue being lost. But a greater part of myself really wanted to be home. To my new home, my new life. And as I pulled in front of the house where this new life takes place, the door opened, and standing in the warm doorway, with the light shining from behind, was my beloved. Inside were candles, roses, and a table set for the meal that he was cooking for us on the stove. I had arrived back into the folds of the new chapter, no stranger to love.
