The Very Last One

As I lay awake on that flat table in Ojo Caliente, a New Mexican holy place that had become a refuge, I sensed that something was about to change. What I didn’t know was that a wave was coming for me that would spend years knocking me down, over and over. I would have limited power against its force, as it buried me in the cool sands of my life’s own rock bottom. Walls of water would spend over two years crashing into with unrelenting righteousness; their power came from a source that guided them to buckle my knees. The more I fought, the more exhausted I would become. Surrender, I would eventually learn, would be the only way.

.

Wash her over.

Knock her down.

Reminder her of that which is truly powerful.

Baptize her.

Wash her clean.

A kind, indigenous woman from the American southwest entered the room and wrapped my naked body in warm, white blankets, tight enough to squeeze out the anxiety that was rising. “I can’t breathe. I can’t escape. I’m trapped,” I thought. But she looked kindly at me, and nodded as if to say, “You’re ok. It’s only a moment in time, silly girl. You can leave when you want. But - don’t.” Her ability to be both firm and gentle nurtured my fears. This was only a spa treatment, after all. And no amount of white blankets could suffocate me. I was in control.

Are you sure about that?

Of course I was. I could leave - whenever I damn well pleased. I was absolutely, positively, almost - well, nearly - sure about that. So why did I feel so trapped? My heart began to race like a jolty baseline inside my throat, and tears soon followed. I could leave my “milagro wrap session” at any time, but what I couldn’t escape was my own life. I wasn’t even sure, until that moment, that I wanted to. But as I began to sweat out the previous night’s party, my guts felt tired, worn, and resigned. Most of all, I felt no joy, and something about being wrapped like a coleky baby in white blankets forced to me accept that I had felt this way for years. “Fifty years more of this?” I thought. “I don’t have it in me. Not like this.”

My detoxing body handed the baton to my wandering mind, which was heavily engrossed in a day-dream of a well-loved, lived-in family home on Sunday morning. Time was slower in this new place and I enjoyed the pace very much. I sat, holding my children and watched their Dad, the man I love, make his famous Sunday pancakes. He smiled and flipped the cakes in the air, laughing with and loving our family - his most prized accomplishment. I smiled, too, and was made whole. Although I didn’t see it, I know that I had an art studio set up in that back of the house, and that I was a writer, a teacher, and a healer. And though I didn’t have much more evidence than a smile and pancakes, but I knew that I was happy.

It was a simple glimpse, but it was more than I needed. Hot tears continued to pour from my closed eyes, and I began pray.

“God. Guides. Ancestors. All beings of light who are now and forever assigned to work in partnership with me. Help. I need you. How do I get THAT life? I am lost. Please show me how to get there. Illuminate the path. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. In fact, looking back, the answer came at the same time as the question. They were intertwined like harp strings, as if the question and the answer were one in the same instrument. In my mind’s eye, I began to see kind and loving beings made of pure light surrounding my spa table. Now, before I lose you, I can tell you that I’m not in the habit of seeing illuminated Spirit Guides - but it happened, so I went with it (and I hope you can too). I can’t tell you what they looked like or who they were - but I can recall that they were faceless, nameless energies, and that they were there to help me and to provide an answer to my prayer.

To my surprise, they did not reprimand me for my past decisions, which I was fully expecting. Instead they sent radiant smiles and deep reassurance that I would not be judged for being me, or asking for help, or any of my choices, or for being naked and sweating out a bottle - or three - of wine from every pore in my body. If I were a spirit guide, and someone who was making questionable life choices came to me for help, I would probably help them, but only after a giving them stern lecture about making stupid decisions. But these guides at Ojo didn’t do that. They weren’t harsh with me the way I am with myself. They loved me in a way that was new to me.

And as their deep kindness surrounded me, I could intuit the answer they were there to deliver.

How do I get THAT life?

You know, Jami. You know what you have to do.

And, I did. I knew.

Video Above: "The Very Last One," performed live at Deeper Still: A Journey Through the Dark Night of the Soul. Song, "In My Blood" by Shawn Mendes, performed by Michelle Rocqet and Tyler Lindgren.

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Just because you know what your Spirit Guides have instructed you to do to improve your life, and thus change your current trajectory, doesn’t mean you always listen. At least not right away.

I had known for years that I would eventually need to quit drinking. A dear friend whom I’d served in the Peace Corps with had a running joke with me - which he found funnier than I did (perhaps because he wasn’t riddled with guilt and shame about drinking too much). After we’d spend a few nights at the beach with enough rum to start an underground cartel, I’d wake exhausted, ashamed, and ill from the dehydration and from my inability to exercise any control. I don’t even like rum. But it’s what we had in Nicaragua, and what I thought I needed. A classic, hungover mess, I would vow to my friend that I would never drink again. I think he thought I meant it. I thought I did, too. Inevitably by noon, I’d have a cocktail to “take the edge off.” A little hair of the dog. Always. Without fail. And the next time I would wake in my shame and sickness, he’d look at me and say, “Let me guess? You’re never drinking again.” Ha ha. Funny.

The Peace Corps was over a decade ago, and I can honestly say that I’d thought about quitting drinking every time I had a drink in my hand since. I also thought about quitting drinking every time I was without a drink. I thought about quitting drinking as I painfully made my way through hungover days - without letting on just how terrible I felt. I thought about quitting drinking when every picture I saw of myself was marked by a classic, puffy face. I thought about quitting drinking each time I shared a bed with a man I didn’t care for, and each time I longed for true love. I thought about it every day for fifteen years.

And I thought about it - hard and long and for real this time - for the six months following my trippy Spirit Guide message in Ojo Caliente. I thought about it until one day I simply couldn’t think about quitting drinking for one more wasted minute. I would actually have to quit.

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If I could have, I would have glued my wide-lens sunglasses to my flushed, puffy face. I would have slept all day and erased all the parts of 15 years that had robbed my joy and stunted my growth. If I could have, I would have thrown in the towel.

But I had made plans with a sister friend, a friend whom I believed at the time had never been through anything painful in her life. I liked to refer to her as an “innocent.” She was blissfully blessed with a life just on the right side of ordinary - or so I told myself. But that was a lie. Most everything I told myself about people who don’t drink too much was false - a narrative built to satisfy my hungry ghosts.

Hungry ghosts, as the Buddhists call them, are fat bellied little demons with emptied stomachs who can never be satisfied, and they live inside all of us. We feed them however we can - often with food, alcohol, shopping, sex, and other vices. I filled their rumbling bellies with booze, and then tried to convince myself that friends like the one I was about to meet for breakfast never felt like I do because they were ordinary, and simple, and uncomplicated. I filled my hungry ghosts with fiction about the reasons why I drank, and stories of resentment about people who didn’t.

I told myself that my sister friend never really suffered, and the thought of spending time with her as I suffered so deeply angered me and made me hate her, albeit unfair. If I could have, I would have cancelled our brunch date in a hot minute. But I was unwavering in my loyalty, and even in my suffering, I was able to show up as a halfway decent friend. A friend whose hungry ghost secretly hated you.

I painfully grabbed my bright yellow shoulder bag, tossed a sophisticated turmeric and poppy colored pashmina across my shoulders, slipped on vintage black flats, and held my shaking hands steady as I lined my lips in my signature shade of red. I wore my costume well - the costume of a young woman living a life on her own terms, and enjoying the occasion of overindulgence. They made red lipstick and big, dark sunglasses for women like me. Most days I was able to convince myself that there was something deep and charming about this get-up.

But not today. A nightmarish scene of Sunday brunch with hipsters and newcomers to my city exacerbated by dizziness, and I had no choice but to stare at the black and white checked restaurant floor and hope that the nausea would pass. I realized that the floor was the same as my grandma’s basement floor. Hers wasn’t a typical basement for a grandmother, and instead was modeled to look like a replica of the Irish bar that my family owned. They sold it when I was three, but it wasn’t lost on me that I - like many of my family members - weren’t spared from its influence.

As quickly as my cigarette soaked throat could muster the words, I ordered a black coffee, and an orange juice. And a soda water with lemon and lime.

And…..heart racing…...and...foot tapping…..and….guilt mounting…..and...finally, surrendering. A mimosa. Light on the orange juice, please.

Surrounded by the chaos of the sounds of Earth brunching, and drowning in my growing panic, my inevitable knock-down, drag-out, come to Jesus, Mary and Joseph moment could no longer be hidden away behind solid friendships, a managed reputation, and a promising career.

I drank and listened to my friend talk about her slightly above boring week - another lie about her that I fed my hungry ghosts. I made them a tasty meal by telling them that her sober, domesticated life was a drag.

I clutched a rose quartz in my hand, hoping it would lend its healing properties. Why? Because a sacred stone was going to get me through the layers of pain and disappointment and fear and unworthiness that led me to this moment? Not on your life, my friend. Look - the earth has healing properties. But if you’re not truly ready to heal, they can’t and won’t work for you. They don’t swoop in to rescue you - all of your stones and oils and vegan meals and Epsom salt baths and nature walks. You’ve got to get the poison out first before they can restore you - healing isn’t a one-sided miracle, You have to do your part.

Deep in my cells was my demoralizing, dehumanizing, shameful sense humiliation that seemed to grow in intensity as the restaurant grew louder. The chomping of eggs Benedict, and clanking of forks against plates and spoons against coffee mugs; the laughter and chatter; cars parking outside and metal chairs sliding across my grandma's tile; oldies steaming over the speakers and my friend’s voice hoping to connect with mine, was a perfect recipe for madness.

Just kill me, I thought.

I had to accept my new path. A wave was coming.

Surrounded by the chaos of the sounds of Earth brunching, and drowning in my growing panic, my inevitable knock-down, drag-out, come to Jesus, Mary and Joseph moment could no longer be hidden away behind solid friendships, a managed reputation, and a promising career. I knew right then that every last bit of what I or some higher power was saying to me about me was true. All of it. I had to accept my new path. A wave was coming.

Wash her over.

Knock her down.

Reminder her of that which is truly powerful.

Baptize her.

Wash her clean.

I took what felt like my first breath in a very long time and ordered another mimosa.

The very last one.