Hey blog, it’s been a while.
This section is turning out to be, “Which book is putting me through an existential crisis now.”
So, if you’re new here, welcome to my innermost thoughts (if there’s any “you’s” out there to address).
It’s why I both love and hate fiction: It forces me to wrestle with different choices and outcomes I want for my life. My nonfictional, very real life. It’s just relayed to me through, more or less, imaginary people in real places.
July’s existential crisis is credited to "The Light We Lost" by Jill Santopolo. Go read it, then read on.
As a journalist whose goal in life is to make a difference, tell a story that connects people, influences someone to reach out to another before it’s too late, to tell them something they should’ve ten – 20 – years ago. This hit home.
And I’m from New York, no less.
Lucy and Gabe love each other like they’ve never loved anyone. They orbit around each other. They fill each other with light. Ultimately, Gabe’s photojournalism career takes him to the Middle East and Lucy’s television production path keeps her in New York.
Gabe won’t stay and Lucy won’t go.
Gabe finds success showing Americans what’s happening in war overseas. Lucy finds it teaching children diverse and thoughtful lessons through cartoon programming.
But it ends in a blur. With Lucy pulling the plug on Gabe’s life support, while married to Darren, carrying Gabe’s baby.
I know, right.
Thus, I feel slapped in the face for two main reasons:
1. Did Gabe’s dreams kill him?
I don’t feel as strong an urge as Gabe to document war, but I do feel his pull to follow his career to whichever heights possible. I want to connect athletes to fans and non-fans alike – or as I like to say, I want to reveal the human behind the helmet. To me, right now, happiness is a successful career. I’m not dodging bombs or flying from warzone to warzone, but with the dedication and time I choose to put toward my career, will it kill me somehow, someway, sometime? Or will it force me to choose love over success? Or success over a life well lived?
It’s something I think about daily. If I had to choose right now, I’d choose success. I’d choose doing Q+A’s with football players and feature stories on lacrosse players. I’d chose a conversation with Alex Aust for a US Lacrosse Magazine story I had two days to compile. I’d chose my work, because, as sad as it may seem to admit, my work is my love. Right now, at least.
2. Is stable love not worth living?
Gabe and Lucy talked about this before, how it seems nobody has everything: An untamable love, a career, money, a thriving social life. It seems people always have to compromise somewhere. That if you’re successful, have a ton of friends and money that your relationship suffers somehow, or vice versa.
Lucy’s best friend’s sister described love in types of fires: a wildfire, a bonfire and a hearth fire.
“…that some relationships feel like wildfire–they’re powerful and compelling and majestic and dangerous and have the capability to burn you before you even realize you’re being consumed.”
The wildfire: all consuming, intense and – if not managed – destructive.
The bonfire: wild and tame all at once – it bows before you while the flames have a mind of their own.
The hearth fire: comforting, stable and dependable.
What I struggle with – what saddens me – is that I don’t understand why Lucy couldn’t let Gabe go after he left her. He was her wildfire, but he traveled halfway across the world and put himself first. Still, Lucy was drawn to him. For thirteen years after, she loved him.
I don’t understand because I’ve never felt that way about anybody. I want to. It’s the first thing listed on my bucket list; the one I made after reading If Cats Disappeared from the World.
"Fall in love (and have it last)," I wrote.
Then I circle back.
Will finding that love destroy my career? If not destroy, distract me from it?
“I hope you find a love like that–one that is all-consuming and powerful that makes you feel like you’re going slightly mad. And if you do find that love, embrace it. Hold onto it. When you give yourself over to love like that, your heart will get bruised. It will get battered. But you will also feel invincible and infinite.”
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