Your Hero’s Journey

It took a few weeks, well, really more than a month, to get back into my regular schedule following the great leap forward (also known as daylight savings time). I have struggled to get out of bed at 6:00 AM, start the coffee, meditate, and get to the gym – all before work. As with all struggles, if it were easy, I guess everyone would be doing it.

As part of my morning workout, I have a list of 10 or so podcasts to which I listen in order to combat the monotony of repeatedly counting reps and sets and miles. Due to my recent laziness and inability to roll out of bed, I am a little behind in my podcast listening.  But, when I am at the gym I listen to episodes of Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed in History Class, Freakonomics, Planet Money, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin, and my favorite The Savage Lovecast.

Dan Savage is one of my idols. I admire his blend of blunt, in your face, practical advice, delivered with the raunchiness of a giggly sex-starved schoolboy, and yet he remains empathetic to the lovelorn, lost, and uninformed. I want to be him when I grow up!

The Savage Lovecast episode I listened to this morning originally aired in November 2012. In it, Savage followed up with a caller who had called about a problem he was experiencing in 2011 following his coming out to his religiously conservative parents. He was having a difficult time deciding what to do about the holidays - go home during his college break, as his parents wanted, to pretend all is well and to be emotionally blackmailed or stay with a friend’s family. He decided not to go home, but in this episode, a year later, we learn that his family is still punishing him and regularly emailing pleas to "leave the darkness and march in the light of Christ."

What intrigued me most about this conversation was Savage’s reference to the caller’s “heroic journey,” which represents the struggle he is now experiencing that will eventually define who he becomes in life. Savage advised this young man to not fall into self-destructive behaviors (alcohol, drugs, risky practices), but to use this journey as a means to forge his own path to happiness. He should take responsibility for his actions and avoid blaming his parents for their reaction.

For some reason, I was struck by the terminology, perhaps due to its literary quality, but it made me think about my own "heroic" journeys and how the choices I made along the way affect my life today. The first journey commenced a week before I graduated from high school, when my closet door was ripped from its hinges before I was mentally or financially prepared to deal with the fall out. As a result, I chose a path of destruction eventually leading to the creation of multiple personae - each intended to please my family, friends, teachers, and employers. Looking back, this path is littered with thousands of beer cans, liquor bottles, the remains of numerous recreational drugs, and the shards of broken hearts.

And yet, I survived only to be forced into a second heroic journey at the ripe old age of 40. This one was precipitated by the estrangement from a parent. I found that my previous tools for coping would not heal this wound. Instead, upon closer examination, I simply realized I had only been pushed from the nest (albeit very late in life) and it was now time to fly. In the 10 years since I embarked on this path, my wings have grown stronger and I feel myself soaring above my troubles. I left no debris trail behind me as I recovered and began to savor a sense of release by living a life full of love and potential, rather than fear, shame and distrust.

I think we are all challenged by life and forced into multiple heroic journeys at various points in our lives. We are sometimes assisted along the way by our loved ones,  but, as Mr. Savage points out, it is up to us to decide whether our stories will be remembered as tragedies or triumphs. 

Peace!