Everything’s gonna be ok

As I traveled home from Tucson, I was sitting on the second flight when my phone alerted me that my keys were still in Dallas. My mind wanted to catastrophize the situation. This wouldn’t be the first time I lost my keys and arrived home not able to drive my car to my house. Instead, I said, it’s ok. You can take a Lyft home. You could get in your house through your lockbox. Your luggage will come tomorrow.

I breathed into this calmness knowing I was creating a different story, one where the keys being left in Dallas and me on my way to Bay Saint Louis, was not bad. I had been trying to shake off shady feelings all weekend.

I arrived in Tucson to the sixth Airbnb I’ve stayed at in Arizona, and like Goldilocks who keeps trying beds and chairs and porridge, I found this one just right. I had had a session with a parent coach about what to do and what not to do on this visit. In the words of Mel Robbins, I was to “let him”. Tin, too, had shifted after a ranch incident with another kid had made him pause and look around and notice who were the ones for Tin, and who were the ones who weren’t.

[This was a profound awakening for Tin.]

We watched Flow, about a cat in a flood, and after the movie was over, Tin turned off the TV and said, “Wow, that was a powerful message and movie.” What was the message? I asked him. “That life throws things at you but you’re supposed to go with the flow, and the people who go with you are those people who support you. Your real friends.”

We ate good meals, at North Italia, at True Food, at Sullivan’s Steak House and I cooked once, with the good pasta (Tinkyada because it’s gluten free) I had brought from home. We thrifted all over town. I found a cashmere sweater for $6! Tin found a hoodie that says Lucky me, I see Ghosts. We went to the movies and saw Thunderbolts. Tin said, “Wow, movies are being made outta real life these days.” How so? I asked. “About depression and how life throws you things and you have to roll with it, and your friends are the ones who are going to stay with you.”

Here he was learning, here I was curious, and together we connected and passed a good time. When I drove Tin back to the ranch, some of his friends came out to the car, one of them was jumping up and down having come off the basketball court to greet him. He was back in his fold. I was heading back to home. The fact that these are two separate places – one where he is living and one where I am – feels like a curveball but not a bad one.

The Airbnb felt quiet when I got back. I was packing to come home and thinking of my to do list. The next full day would be about travel. There was an underpinning of shady feelings. What is wrong? There was a lot to do when I returned. But there always is. There were projects to complete and projects to create. But there are always projects. There was trying to find time to take Wild Thing out on the road again. First world problems.

There was me. There’s the shady feeling where I preminisce an end to the salad days. I know I’m edging out of the third quarter and the uncertain fourth lies in waiting, if I’m lucky to have four quarters of this life. My shadow thoughts were trying to shade over the good feelings from the weekend. I meditated to hold them in abeyance. The next morning, while waiting to leave for the airport I went on one of my parent support calls and talked about the weekend.

I sat on the plane thinking about my keys and knowing it was a story I was telling myself. That it would be alright instead of it will be all wrong. My bag was spit out onto the roller when I got to baggage claim – it acted like nothing was wrong. The woman who sat in back of me shot me a knowing smile. She had heard me ask the flight attendant about it. There’s the knowing that life is always about curve balls and making sure you have the right people in your camp.