I was often told I wouldn’t live past the age of 17 – not because i was going to join the ranks of Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain and kick out this world at the ripe, young age that seems to be the odd and yet oh-so-appropriate number for tortured artists to leave this world.
I don’t even know if it was legal or if that’s what normal people do. Still, my dad didn’t shy away from telling me that he had a Life Insurance Policy in my name as if the status of a potentially cushy retirement weighed heavy on my “will she/won’t she” broad shoulders. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. And now, it seems fucked.
As honored as I’d be to check out and find myself cloud-chilling with the likes of Janis Joplin or Jim Morrison, as many questions as I have for Amy Winehouse, the Universe had a different plan for me. I was also taught to be grateful for the suffering – the way that life always kept me and kicked me down, knowing my place. Victim. So, a part of me feels grateful for the truth that I deeply felt and believed that the year would be my last.
And it was. Almost.
Twice over I landed in the trauma ward the year of my 27th birthday. Once on a purposeful and instantly regretted overdone. The second time, I don’t really remember. They tell me it was a bad accident. I only remember the screams of pain each time the prongs of a medical brush grabbed and tore shrapnel from my arms. I had become one with the road.
Gratitude comes in the form of renewal. I began fresh somewhere between tragedy one and tragedy two. I found sure footing being alone again, this time for good and I was ok with it. I was reborn with hardly a scratch – no evidence of months prior.
Tragedy two altered my brain – something I didn’t know and certainly wasn’t aware until years of hindsight became insight became Knowing what all those absent patches meant – at least in that year.
At 27, I felt as though I had been given the gift of faking my own death and getting away with it. The people who went to and fro seemed to go away for good this time. My friends changed. My address changed. My job changed. My hopes for what would be and what had become of me would change.
I felt love and felt like I was in love – something I didn’t really know enough about at the time to understand that while he was the right one for me and this was the right time to be together, the love would come later in its true and present form – in a way that was intensely quiet and unmoving, able to allow whatever it is to strike up or fall apart because I Knew we’d always be who we were, together in whatever shape or form that would take over the years. That’s what I trusted him, first. That’s why I took the leap of faith and believed that in the center of generosity was the heartbeat of willingness. I was given the gift of Knowing by date #4 that we were willing to get through anything. And we have.
My life hasn’t been the same since, and so much of me seems unfamiliar to what we jokingly call “the before time” that I finally changed the parts of my name I no longer identify with. I became. Someone else.
And for that, I am grateful. For that, I reflect on the past to move into a present rendition of Imagining Future – Week 4 of the #BeMoGrateful Gratitude Challenge.
Imagine Future
Imagine Future was the theme of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival – a milestone that marked 15 years of finding any way possible to attend. It was the perfect hobby to attach to my years in the music business and always an opportunity to go elbow-to-elbow with familiar Sony Music executives. It was a good life, even at $10 or $15 bucks an hour, and I made it work. These were the days that added power to Knowing myself and lent a hopeful and optimistic truth to my Imagined thoughts. I Need that. Don’t we all? — To think positively about where we’re going – not just on the weight of hope, but with emotive possibility.
I’ve done a lot of hopeful imagining over the last year – mostly for yards or for houses, for trustworthy manufacturing and a moment of ease in solopreneurship, for big sales streaks, and for worry-free flights across miles of ocean.
To me, the practice of Imagine Future has always been a safe dose of exposure therapy – a Needed psychological reform and a practice of trying not harder but trying at all. When my imagined place doesn’t pan out – when the house goes off the market and the test run with a new manufacturer arrives in pieces – there is something quiet and pleasing about the imagined truth that reminds me miracles have happened; reminds me that it is a miracle that I am even alive…
When things don’t happen, it no longer alters my hope or willingness to stay two feet planted on this Earth. I no longer feel the urge to quit it all and check out – to go back in time and high-five the music demigods as they say to me, “I knew you’d be back,” because I’ve visited before. But I’m not 27 anymore. Dear God, I’m almost 40. There’s no shaming or shoulding in how I should act; there’s Knowing that I am more than a survivor. I am Stark. I am endless, darkness, strength, and complete.
This exercise that I created (below) challenges others to take their BeMo Extra practice of Imagine Future and imagine a time in the near or far from now that you feel immensely grateful. What does that look like? Feel like? Taste like?
So let’s give it a go. In present tense, for present thought.
The smell of amazing foods that I felt absolute joy in cooking are wafting through the air and I don’t even care if the furniture is arranged on time or if the drinks are poured by anyone other than a frantic, happy me because my friends are coming over and I’m eager to give them love in the form of turkey and aromatic vegetarian dishes made for some of the people I love and cherish most. Isa is smiling in that way that looks up at me as if to say, “Mom, you’re the best,” and I Know it. I Know he feels that way and I am grateful that I too, feel like I am good at this. Really good.
The boxes are everywhere, the office door closed to hide all of the spaces between holiday decisions and hopeful giving and I Know that this has been a long day from 3am to midnight, but I wanted to see the tree twinkling in the night and feel the annual childlike wonder of starring up at the lights through the branches down below. It’s magic. “Look Isa…”
I can’t believe that I finally get to take my niece to one of the most beautiful places on the planet and I am, deep down, more eager to get to Know her on a deeper level, traveling together through time never wasted than I am to stand atop a mountain or take a picture to prove to no one that I came and I saw.
What I have are these quiet, long-lived moments of starring at the smiles and boisterous laughter coming from the love of my life as the dog bounces from pillow to pillow – all his, all for him – he’s not spoiled at all, he’s loved deeply and completely with boundaries of always open arms and down-on-his-level conversations that allow me to practice speaking to myself with equal kindness and understanding that I too am in training.
Too often these are the times that seemed too complex with comings and goings – will the uninvitation come before the party or the day of? Will he leave? Will I leave? Will it all be over this time? No more. I don’t have to think like that anymore. In fact, I haven’t. For the first time, I’m fully in it. I’m face-in to this warm popcorn, hiding tears of laughter as we mimic the harsh one-liners of Lifetime Christmas movies and try to uncover the long forgotten memories of who this actor or actress is meant to look like – someone that is actually famous.
This year, I feel lucky. This year, I feel even more than blessed. I feel eager and welcoming. I feel ready and willing . But most of all, I feel here. My future is in this moment and I am deeply ready to arrive.
Cassandra "Caz" Stark 