Entry 3: Orbiting

the homeward diaries

I don’t drink. I don’t need to with the life I’ve lived.

I’ve already numbed so hard and far out to the edges of myself I went beyond the razor - and I lived it all without telling a soul - not because I didn’t want to, though.

Because there was no confessional booth - only editors trimming scraps of truth and calling it the fat.

There was no sounding board, only the silent void inside my dad’s teal Honda Accord - the one that was totaled when he got rear-ended by a school bus on that icy morning.

My mom called me from work to tell me what happened and asked me to go.

I drove with my heart in my throat and when I got there, I followed the nurse through the hallways of the ER until saw my dad’s dress socks and burgundy leather shoes peeking out from behind the curtain on that hospital bed.

His favorite purple fleece jacket streaked with dried blood and his silver hair clumped together where the visor clip cut into his skull.

He was fine, naturally - he survived Vietnam, a divorce, the heart attack that took his dad - but, also, he wasn’t…

Like half empty wine glasses tucked in cabinets and the dent in my closet from that time I threw a softball at the wall and the matching ones in my brother’s room in the shape of his fist covered up by newspaper clippings.

I always wondered how anyone could live like a dropped can.

It would take a bout with mono my freshman year in college, 20 pounds and transferring back home plus another decade and a divorce for me to find out.

Add on another 10+ years to that and I’m sitting on this couch letting Noah Kahan egg me on while I sip cold tea knowing every “right” thing I should be saying to you…

But no one’s favorite song comes from that kind of album.

No one gifts their best friend who’s going through hell that book.

We want heart in hands, beating in open air levels of truth around here.

And the truth is, we don’t have time for anything else!

Thirteen years ago, I lay on that table and saw the actual light.

My planets stopped spinning and started back up - orbiting in the opposite direction - and the doctor said everything was fine, like they always do - the ones with the vault of secrets too afraid of their own truth to liberate themselves from the strangle hold it has on their entire family line.

Then there’s us: the truth tellers. The cycle breakers. The ones asking the questions no one wants to hear the answers to.

And because I love you - I am going to say the real thing out loud…

No one can save you from the pain you aren’t willing to face or the secrets you keep locked away.

I believe that we - yes, you, dear sweet soul - are the ones to drop the batons.

I want you to clock in that every single person you meet is projecting their predominant energy onto you.

And that energy - how they actually feel in their life is their version of reality.

Which means, that in many cases, they are trying to save you from getting hurt inside the echo chamber of their own pain.

Ask me how I learned this.

Every great thing I’ve ever wanted to do in my life was a decision I had to make on my own.

The people who love me told me it was a bad idea - that I was “throwing away” what I had earned, what I had worked so hard for…

What they didn’t know was how far out on that edge I was, that the house was on fire and no one was coming in to save me - not even them.

They also didn’t know what it meant to be Amber Eve.

The girl who testified in court at 5, who took the stand and spoke truth to complete strangers, who’s power was halved - over and over again and still, she knew who she would be one day.

The moment I saw the light I started really living - rearranging my world - getting ready to quit my career in sports and go all-in on my own business - smashing through my own ceiling.

You stop wasting time when you realize no one is coming in that burning building for you and you start to live each day like the one before it is already in the ash pile.

That’s what we’re doing here, btw.

Rearranging, reordering and saying the real things.

We have graduated, my loves.

We don’t need to teach or talk about the thing at a 5th grade level - the bros and their babes can keep their 5-step frameworks and glossy growth strategies.

Can you imagine your favorite poet, writer, artist thinking they needed to dilute their work down so people could understand them?

Gag.

We’re too busy writing the words our beloveds dream boats will discover. We’re full to the brim with truth and whimsy and radical candor about what being here and human really means.

And we’re too tired to spend a second more on anything else.

This life is a gift.

Cheers to you,

xo - A