Space Travel

For a minute there, I was mad at my therapist. Not for a breach of confidence or any other kind of unprofessional behavior. No, I was mad at him because he’s right, and he has been for the better part of the three years I’ve been working with him. Change is hard, and the process to develop personally can be grueling. But even if I was mad, it’s not lost on me how lucky I am that I’ve got a trained professional to help me through it all.

Most remarkable about what I’m realizing isn’t that this guy has been right all along—I knew he had credentials and a wealth of experience at the outset—it’s that he has allowed this process to be mine, even if it probably (certainly) prolonged the outcome. He has let me move at the pace that’s appropriate for me, even though the path through this maze has probably looked pretty clear from his vantage point. While the endpoint, the goal of getting through this maze, was why I started working with him, the fact that he didn’t dictate anything has meant I have learned and changed in ways I could not have anticipated in this process. Sure, getting out of the maze sooner would have been cool. But what and who I’ve become in the intervening sessions before finally (who am I kidding—maybe) being able to even conceptualize the finish line has richly enhanced my life and who I am.

It’s a gift that my therapist has known when to push me, but also when to respect what I could or wanted to give. And as I think about how significant that is, I think about the other times in my life that I’ve been afforded that same gift. When I was a recent high school grad, I’m sure my parents thought I was being shirty and defensive when they’d talk to me about my future. It’s not like I wasn’t doing something with my life, but there were questions about going on a mission that loomed large on everyone’s minds, and what I had indicated I would do (go on a mission) probably wasn’t exactly matching up with what I was actually doing (I certainly wasn’t opening a mission application, or acting very excited about it).

It’s very impressive that my parents gave me the space they did at a time that would have been really easy to push and demand some answers. I’d always been a kid that did as he was told: become an Eagle Scout, don’t ditch school, try for As in your classes, accept and magnify your callings, etc. The next step, according to Mormon culture, was to go on a mission. And I was a do-gooder—one who wanted to please his parents, even! Folks are always surprised when I tell them I didn’t want to go on a mission because I otherwise seemed the type that would be gone right on his 19th birthday. 

During what I could have never anticipated would be such a tremendously tricky era of  my life, my parents struck a balance that I suspect many people don’t know how to find: demonstrating obvious support and care for my life and its outcome, but also allowing me the independence to navigate it on my own. I don’t remember being mad at their prying because I don’t think there was any; I have no recollection that they were trying to make choices for me, even though it probably would have been really easy to. I just remember their constant presence and enthusiasm for my life.

And just like with this therapist of mine, the intervening years before arriving at what seemed like the ideal outcome (I did go on that mission, as it turns out) provided opportunities for me to learn a lot, experience some really beautiful and fun things, and come to a decision that I absolutely wanted to serve a mission (in this instance using “want” as a synonym for “accept God’s will and hope for the best," haha) all on my own. All of those things contributed positively to the kind of missionary I was, and to the kind of man I am now.

This was in 2013. I'd been home ~3 months.

A couple of days ago I stood next to a complete stranger while we worked our shift at the Mesa Temple open house. She told me about how her kids don’t fit the Mormon mold, but that she feels that God sent them to her because she’s capable of loving them no matter their choices. I told her how the love and space my parents gave me was the thing that allowed me to learn and become sufficiently ready to make a big decision. I assured her she was doing right by them, and I absolutely meant it because now I’m sitting here on the seventh anniversary of Mom’s death thinking about the gift of unconditional love and how that included space. It truly feels like the biggest thing she could give me before I’d leave for Kentucky and before the tumor that would take her life would start creeping in more earnestly. If I had to lose that person that dropped me off on the curb at the MTC, someone I’d never see again in that same way, I couldn’t be more grateful that what stands out most vividly in the years leading up to my mission is her watchful care as I figured my life out.

As I consider why I was mad at my therapist I know it wasn’t actually anger at all, but part of my ongoing effort to accept that hard work is exactly that: hard. I just had some additional learning to do before I could get to this phase of my personal work. This is all a process that no one can put a distinct timeline on, and while I learn to do what’s hard, I’m learning more that not having my life dictated to me is actually the best thing because of everything that happens in the tough spaces in between wanting something and going after it. But I know I have the wind at my back because I’m feeling more ready to enter a new phase that feels a lot like taking that step to fill out my mission papers. I’ve been dreading some stuff. But the time and space that have been carved for me by people I care about mean that I’m ready to make some decisions, even when they’re scary. And for the many things that I certainly can’t predict, I know it’ll be alright.