Lights, Tunnels, & Phone Jacks
I feel the need to preface this week’s post with some additional context. I wrote this piece during a period of profound grief after losing my child, while renovating what was meant to be his room. At my oldest son's suggestion, we were transforming this space into my writing room – a decision that felt both healing and heartbreaking. This was written during a time when I had lost all hope of finding sustained joy, yet somehow the universe had other plans. Today, I sit in this yellow-walled room feeling my son's spirit cheering me on as I share my stories with you.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel and apparently it's shining through a space in the wall where a phone jack used to be. It's clear the beams were cut with such precision around the phone jack it almost looks like it belongs in 2020. I asked the lovable, disorganized blizzard of chaos, also known as my contractor—why? "Why would you do this?" His response was quite simple. "I didn't know what you would want."
Lying there on the floor of this room staring up at the ceiling, asking God why he didn't make me REALLY good at painting walls (and also if He would please help me up off the floor), I turned and saw the phone jack I took off the wall (so it could safely return to 1992). I laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks. Granted, it was probably the sort of laugh that signals an impending break with reality, but a laugh nonetheless. My whole life was in upheaval over my home being 'beautified.' It's stupid. I have had worse problems.
I remember being a kid and having dreams in color. Talking on the phone on a landline, giggling with my friends. Maybe I could get a phone like I had when I was 12—clear with neon pink and purple lights. That would be fun! And maybe I still will! (No I won't). My room was Pepto-Bismol pink. The bedspread was pink and purple, and glitter poured from my soul. It was a magical time. Take my word for it.
"I didn't know what you would want." I didn't know what I would want either. And isn't that the entire problem right there? With me and the universe and the stupid fucking gap where ancient communication tools resided?
Just yesterday I was 15 years old, talking on the phone, my feet kicked up, and dreaming of being interviewed by Oprah for my Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. But I didn't know I would want attention, boys, and deliverance from what seemed like unlivable circumstances. Or that I would want my son, then my husband, then a house, then my other son. And to be on the same level as my friends, not be broke, and have a nicer home.
Then I would just want my son to live and he wouldn't.
So what do you really have a right to want after that? Peace? No, it doesn't come easily. Just one foot in front of the other. That's what I wanted. And every day that's all I want.
I want us to survive it. For it to matter. For his loss to matter. For me to matter. For what I say to matter. I just want to keep going.
I guess there is some light. It's tiny and it's coming from where there was a phone jack in the wall. From 1992 when dreams were pink, purple, covered in glitter, and very possible.
Journal Prompt
Sometimes our dreams fade to grayscale when survival takes center stage. Between childhood dreams and adult realities, between pink bedrooms and renovation chaos, between what we wanted then and what we need now. This week, we're reclaiming our right to dream in technicolor.
Weekly Deservitude Prompt: Take a moment to write about something you once dreamed of in full color - let yourself remember the vibrancy, the glitter, the absolute certainty of those dreams.
Now, write about when your dreams started losing their color. Write this truth to yourself: 'I deserve to dream in color.' What begins to brighten when you believe this? What dreams would you paint in brilliant hues if you knew you deserved every shade of possibility?
Share a dream that's ready to be painted back to life, or keep it private in your journal. Either way, you deserve to reclaim every color in your palette.