Shafts of Sunlight

I have returned from West Virginia refreshed and enlightened. A door opened partway this weekend, revealing shafts of light. I saw daylight, and now I know that the darkness I’ve been seeing in my life day after day is really only cloud cover. If you look higher, it’s actually sunny out there.

I started feeling great as soon as CanadaGirl and I hit the road on Friday. We met up at Newark Airport after work to pick up a rental car, and she volunteered to drive first. We got out onto I-78 and drove off west into the country. The route out to West Virginia was beautiful — we took I-78 into Pennsylvania, then I-81 south through Maryland, and then I-70 west into West Virginia. Green fields, rolling hills, farmland, the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, little roadside gas stations just off the highway. I’m very familiar with much of this route, having driven it back and forth between UVA and northern New Jersey many times during the last decade, so it was very nostalgic for me, and I felt a sweetness upon being on these roads once again. The sun went down and the stars came out, and although there seemed to be lots of vehicles on the road for a rural Friday evening, most of the land around the highway was dark. We listened to the radio, jumping among various FM stations, and finally, late in the evening, we turned to AM so CanadaGirl could find out the score of the basketball game. We picked up AM stations from Boston and Toronto and even from somewhere west of the Mississippi, which I knew because the call letters began with a K. Finally we picked up a fire-breathing Jesus preacher on the dial and listened to him for a while. It was amusing, but there was also something creepy about driving along a dark highway in the middle of nowhere and listening to this voice preaching fire and brimstone. It was like something out of Stephen King. Finally, at around 11:30 at night, we got to the town of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia — known for its spas and hot springs — and found our way to the rest of the gang in the suite we’d all rented together.

There were seven of us this weekend. One person was the fiancée of one of the guys, and another person didn’t live in our dorm but has sort of been an honorary member of our little group. Two or three people couldn’t make it this weekend, but there were enough. I mentioned last time that these are all very talented people. They probably just seem like an abstract group to you, because you don’t know them firsthand. But each of us has a very distinctive and individual personality. We’ve known each other for almost eight years now. We lived together in the same small dorm for two years during college, and during that time we each garnered a nickname. We also have tons of in-jokes and catchphrases that have developed over time. We also play spades together. And collectively, these people make me laugh more than any other people I know. I don’t think I can explain the chemistry we all have together. I love their company. I think of us as a family, and I consider myself extremely fortunate to have met everyone in our little band of friends. I cherish these people.

It was nice to be the token gay guy this weekend — it was nice to hang out with a bunch of straight people for a change. (Except CanadaGirl. She’s the token gay girl.) These people are so accepting and supportive of me and of who I am. They like me for who I am. In fact, they like me because of who I am.

But back to the weekend. It was not just a relax-and-hang-out sort of weekend. This time, there was an itinerary. Two of the guys had organized the weekend in order for us to discuss our professional lives, with an eye towards eventually perhaps putting all of our talents and skills together to create some sort of business or other endeavor. There were two big easels, markers, pads of paper, pens. Friday night we hung out and drank beer. Saturday morning we got up at 8:00, and by 9:00 we were sitting on couches and chairs. We went around the room and each of us summarized the paths of our professional lives since graduation — what we’ve done, where we’ve been, and more importantly, what we’ve learned and what skills we’ve developed over the last few years. After lunch, we sat around brainstorming about different ideas. Nothing fully concrete came out of it, but I think we’ve hit upon some interesting ideas that will germinate, and maybe something will come out of this eventually.

Late in the afternoon we went out for a short walk/hike. Then we came back and talked some more. At night we made dinner together and drank beer. Afterwards we sat around drinking lots more beer, talking about everything under the sun, playing some wacky games of Hangman on the whiteboard. CanadaGirl put up a phrase and told us the category was “70’s show.” The answer wound up being “That 70’s Show.” One of the guys put up a phrase, and it turned out to be “I don’t want to play Hangman anymore.” Later on he did another one, and it was “Can we please shoot the person who started this game.”

I laughed this weekend. I laughed more than I’d laughed in ages. At one point on Saturday afternoon, when we were sitting around brainstorming, a few incredibly hilarious ideas were thrown into the ring at the same time, and suddenly we all burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter. For about two minutes I was laughing so hard that my stomach muscles were hurting and there were tears in my eyes. I couldn’t catch my breath. I had to take off my glasses and collapse against the couch and I still couldn’t stop laughing. It had been a few years since I’d laughed that hard. It was absolutely wonderful. If I can laugh like that even just a few more times over the course of my existence, it will make this whole life thing worthwhile.

This weekend I thought about some things that I hadn’t thought about before. We talked about the concept of a corporation, the reasons for it, whether it’s a useful concept or not. Before the weekend, these words and ideas and everything surrounding them — “team,” “management,” “incentive” — were anathema to me and my left-handed personality and right-brained mind. They just sounded so Dilbert. Now I’m not so sure. I’ve always been skeptical about the idea of joining together with people to create a business, or to create anything, really. And on Saturday, while we were talking about this concept, I realized why. It’s not just that I feel it would be constricting and claustrophobic, and it’s not just that I resent people telling me what to do. It’s that I’ve wanted to achieve things on my own. I’ve wanted to be an acclaimed individual. I’ve wanted to be praised and known for myself, for who I am, for my own special talents and abilities.

You go through school and everything is geared toward the individual. Individual awards. Individual achievement. Individual talents. You’re rewarded for who you are and for what you can do by yourself. And then you become an adult, and you see that many things in the world can be accomplished only in teams. It seems so simple, but until this weekend, I didn’t realize why everyone out there talks about teamwork and group motivation and so on and so forth. It’s still not natural for me to use all those corporate-type words, but at least now I know why people talk about things like this. It no longer seems only like a way for Evil Forces to quash the power of the individual and make the world a gloomy place. Sometimes it’s actually the best way to get something done.

My most important epiphany came after all of us had summarized what we’ve done and where we’ve been in the last five or six years. I realized that I’m not the only one who has drifted from one thing to another. One guy worked for a company in Arkansas, and then one in Georgia, and then went up to New Jersey a year ago, but he got laid off, and just recently he moved to DC. One guy went into the Peace Corps, got sick and had to leave, and then he got a master’s degree, and he’s been working at a job for a year, and he’s already looking for something else. CanadaGirl worked in a French bakery out in Seattle for two years, then got an MBA, and now she’s a consultant for one of the Big Five. (Or is it Big Six? I can’t remember.) Another of us has just completed a five-year stint in the Navy, and at the end of the summer he’s off to Paris for a one-year French MBA program.

I realized that none of us really knows what we want to do with our lives. I don’t feel like so much of a failure anymore. We’re all either 26 or 27, and when I look at where I am and where they all are, I don’t feel much different from them. And I see that if they can all be more accepting of their own imperfections, then I should be more accepting of mine, too. Anyway, I may be a slacker in my current job, but I did get a law degree and pass a couple of bar exams. It just means that my current job isn’t really for me. But I really do need to lighten up.

And I’m young! I’m so goddamn young. For some reason it’s so hard for me to get this concept firmly lodged in my head. I always worry that I’m squandering my time, that my peak years are passing or have passed, that it’s all too late, that nothing good will happen during the rest of my life. I tend to extrapolate the present into the future — to tell myself that things will Always Be Like This. But they won’t. This weekend showed me that it’s still possible to feel full and alive.

I thought about some other things, too. I wonder if New York is the place for me. I wonder if someplace like DC would be a little better. It would be so great to live someplace where I have sunlight streaming in through the windows, and a homey atmosphere, and a car, and easy access to mountains and fields and vistas. We were only about two hours from Charlottesville this weekend, and I realized once again how much I miss that place. I don’t just miss UVA — I miss the town itself sometimes.

So I’m going to have to make some major changes in my life. I have to think about things and start some things afresh. This weekend I saw that it’s possible to be happy. I experienced some joyful moments, and I experienced some people upon whose shoulders the world weighs much less than it does upon mine. There’s a lesson here. In fact there are tons of lessons here. It’s going to take me a while to process everything that happened this weekend.