This is Thanksgiving day, and I am Hiding. Hiding from the world at large, not any one thing in particular. I am no different than a lot of people, facing a year of challenges. Usually, I’m not one to reflect on how “tough” or “terrible” something has been. I usually not one to reflect on much of anything. I think forward, and this does a disservice at times, I think. I forget how much of the world has affected me and what I have done to affect it, over time. Hiding is something I do to try to get myself back on the rails of life, moving forward as it were. I need to look back to look forward.

This Thanksgiving is a different one for me. No family dinner. No overstuffed turkey or gelatinous cranberry loaf on my table. We went to a place where no one knows us, where we can just do f*** all, as I’ve been wont to say lately. Get up late, don’t stress over the cell phone or emails, turn off notifications, sleep when I want, write, and think.

There’s a lot of thinking that goes on in Hiding. One of the things that I do every year is a set of goals. I usually start it around my birthday and work on it for a few months, until I feel good about where I’m going. It struck me the other day that I haven’t done that. My birthday came and went and not a glimmer of goal was to be found. So, we have gone into Hiding and I want to explore this with Doyle. We packed a bag and took a train, and went away with proverbial pen in hand.

One thing that struck me this year was that we accomplished one of our major life goals: we built our forever house. We moved in. This is what we had spent the better part of our lives working toward for decades. And there it is. Complete. Lovely. Ours. It’s what we’ve dreamed of and worked hard to achieve. We made it. A creation for decades to come and to share when we’re gone.

Now what? That was the question that kept coming to me. On the train ride up into the mountains, there was an abundance of beautiful land, bald eagles, deer crossing streams, and sheer wonder at nature. Now what? I don’t know. I am not sure.

I was surprised by one comparison that jumped to my mind: my father died as I was completing the house which is, to me, a major life commitment. My mother died as I was releasing my first book, becoming a Freemason, and divorcing my ex. Another set of major life changes/commitments. It’s like the universe had to help me shift my reality to be able to see a new life ahead.

Unfortunately, right now, I don’t know what that life is. I still feel plodding, stuck in a weird mire of apathy, fear, and meaninglessness. I search on the inside for some deeper feeling, something to connect me with life – with Life and Nature – and I’m struggling. Perhaps it’s because it’s the first time I’m the adult, I’m the matriarch, I am the holder-together-of-the-family-left. It’s a job that is extremely challenging for me. Hiding tugs at me. Yet, the Need does as well. The Need? The need to grow, the need to be the best version of myself, the need to create, the need to laugh and find joy, and the need to have purpose. I’m full of others telling me I have purpose – but I need to feel it. The Need.

I know that everyone deals with these things, I’m just in the soup with all the rest of you. I am fiercely independent and want to find my own way, no one helping me. That’s freedom, to me. Yet, I know that asking for help is freedom, too. I’m learning not to be shy, not to shy away from the hand that is offered. I would not have made it this year if I had not reached out and grasped those hands. It was hard for me to do – not because I didn’t see the need, no. It was because I was afraid of committing more of myself to relationships that would take work. More of me would be lost.

Silly me.

This weekend is going to be filled with conversation and questions, eating, and sleeping. More of digging into what I love and what I Need. Hiding brings me to balance, where the Need can raise its head and make itself known. I don’t know where this next segment of life journey will take me. Probably on a train back home with a few less questions roaming around in my head and heart. Most certainly to a new life that will rise from the ashes of the past. Isn’t that always the way?

-TDD