Rowley's Word

You could say I went though a bit of a bad-girl phase growing up.  Far from being the girl next door, I was the girl at the Dead End. 

I was 12 years old when I smoked my first Marlboro Red and chased my first pint of Jack Daniels with Mountain Dew.  I began practicing these habits regularly with my friends, who were all three to five years older than me, at a place down the street from my house called the Dead End.  It was called the Dead End because that’s exactly what it was, literally and metaphorically. The spot was essentially the stone pillar remains of a train bridge that ran across the river in my hometown.  After the bridge was torn down, the remote space left behind made for fantastic stomping grounds, in which to make noise, avoid doing homework, and hang out with boyfriends.  During my time at the Dead End, my era of ripening adolescence, I learned what it is to be self-destructive, and why being bad feels so good. 

I am sure there are several sophisticated psychological theories as to why I shoplifted, hitch-hiked, and snuck out of the house late at night to go to heavy metal concerts, where I would sit on the shoulders of strange men twice my age, and wave my cigarette lighter in the air to the latest and greatest ‘90s power ballads.  Some say boredom was the culprit.  Others say this bittersweet rebellion was born of pain.  I don’t dismiss either charge as a possibility.  However, I believe the core of my angst mainly stemmed from an insatiable longing to feel free.  Aside from love, freedom is the most exhilarating force one can have the pleasure of embracing.

Many years have passed since my Dead End days, and I have long outgrown the penchant for Marlboro Reds and Jack Daniels/Mountain Dew.  But I don’t think it’s coincidental that several of my most memorable tastes of freedom have come laced with drops of danger.  I don’t believe the seemingly random attraction I had for men with lethal addictions during my 20s was random at all.  I associated love with freedom (and still do), and up until recently, I associated love with darkness (and barely any light).  

One day I woke up and decided that I wanted to change.  I wanted to become a magical sorceress of light, who could bestow nothing but good tidings on all the earth and unto myself.  What I didn’t take into account is that there is no light without dark, and that any kind of positive transition like the one I was initiating takes time, more time than I wanted to allow.  Patience is not my strong suit, especially when it comes to my own self-evolution. 

Not long ago, I promised someone who showed me what it is to bask in freedom without darkness or danger that I would always be his lighthouse on the Bay.  I failed.  Miserably.  He sailed far out to sea, where I loved to hear the fog horns calling for him.  A storm rolled in on his way back to shore, and instead of shining brighter, I let a torrential downpour distinguish my flame. The air filled with a June gloom so heavy that there was no way he could have made his way back to me.  The old black rituals I practiced back when I stood face to face with danger came into play, and my someone nearly drowned. Forgiveness over time is not unimaginable, but the damage done is irrevocable. 

My first great mistake in this journey to finding and maintaining a healthy balance of light and dark, and knowing the difference between danger and freedom, was promising to be HIS anything.  We do not need to be anyone’s light or anyone’s rock or anyone’s peace.  This cannot be the sole purpose for wanting to evolve. We must strive to be all those elements for ourselves, and let all the beautiful horizons that will present themselves as a result do so naturally. 

My second error was projecting the past onto an innocent bystander.  My third is dwelling on the first and second.  So now…I focus on the lesson learned from expecting too much too fast, and I try to turn wrong to right.

If I have learned anything over the years it is that the pendulum swings both ways, and if you do not learn how to slow it down it knocks you on your ass.  I’ve also come to accept that I will always have a dark side.  I will never be the girl next door.  And I may not be anyone’s lighthouse on the Bay, but I will undoubtedly forever be that girl waving her cigarette lighter in the air, carrying a little dark, a little light, and a whole lotta love.