Can’t go back now

For a couple of days, I have been obsessed with a song by The Weepies: Can’t Go Back Now. The basic premise is that adulthood is hard. But you knew that already.

Monday I wallowed in the first part of the song: the notion that the cocoon of childhood is short — for those who have one at all — and that you just need to keep moving forward to survive. That may feel true, but it also feels deeply depressing.

By Tuesday I had moved on to the more constructive part: that the things you choose to do on your own with the support of your chosen family are the ones that matter the most. It was such a fragile realization. It is always easier for me to revert to the notion that I am alone. But I held it close and it stayed with me.

Today, I have arrived at the crux of the matter. That we are not, in fact, alone. That movement is not always the same as leaving. That there is beauty in change. And that change is everything, everywhere, all at once.

There is melancholy in this, of course. It is, as my daughter commented, in the branding: The Weepies.

But there is also joy. Discovery. Openness. For a full month after I had moved to my own apartment after my first marriage ended, I had this aching back and felt cold and exhilarated all at once. As if I had been in a box that was too small, and now I was stretching up and out, and it felt unprotected but also full of possibilities. Yes, I know: my body is not super subtle in its imagery.

And so now, as I am writing this, looking out on the quietness of a morning harbor, I feel deeply connected to the destruction-and-creation combo that is every moment.

We can’t go back. We can’t go forward. We can just be. One long string of nows, each one a possibility to love.