(Oct. 1, 2010) There exists an interesting place. More of an idea than a location; more of an enigma than a solution — a pivotal point in Jane’s life where she had to make a choice to carry on as she has been, or, turn it all around.
Before now, there was a distinct time in Jane’s life when she knew she wasn’t on a path that was right for her. Before she was beckoned to beach life, beckoned back to her roots, she was blindly making decisions almost as though she simply had to.
Like taking too many steps in numerous relationships that were the exact opposite of good for her and staying for far too long in way too many jobs that she wasn’t passionate about. Although she received some standard securities like paychecks and health insurance, along with some serious technology perks, Jane will always see herself during those times as the walking dead.
How can one be only half-alive when given money, structure and security? And if she could admit that she actually wasn’t fulfilled, that these things weren’t the missing pieces of her bewilderment, then what was the matter with everyone else? Or, at the time, Jane of course asked what was the matter with her?
So, in tried and true fashion that has existed and perfected its way over the many, many years of our enigmatic existence, something greater than her had reached down onto Jane’s path and meddled in it. The way in which such changes like these come about aren’t without conflict, they are not accepted without restraint and the truth does not go silently into the night.
Chuck Palahniuck illustrates in his book, “Invisible Monsters,” “This is how I found the strength not to get on with my former life. This is how I found the courage not to pick up the same old pieces.” And these are the proving grounds.
As the carpet was pulled from beneath Jane and her direction was changed in the same abrupt manner in which a boomerang decides at that exact moment that it will now head back in the direction from which it came, she found herself back on the road that she took from childhood, back on the road she had veered off of in order to become an adult.
Finally back at the beach, finally back with her aunts and uncles and mother and grandfather, finally passing by where she once worked an umbrella stand on 33rd Street, and passing by past places of employment, Jane felt a comfortable stirring of familiarity along Coastal Highway.
For some, these might not be the makings of dreams, but they are the makings of Jane’s reality. For her, the question isn’t “What do you do?” rather than “Are you happy?” And it isn’t so much about whom she is with as much as it matters whether or not she can be OK on her own.
And finally, after a certain amount of time spent struggling with herself, Jane has relinquished herself to a reflective state in her life where she sits on the beach for hours on end, gazing at the ocean’s waves, contemplating the flight of an Osprey as it catches a wind current, coasting along its own natural path. Finally, she has surrendered to her own proving grounds.
just jane. 