Untamed

by Glennon Doyle

  If I could do it again, I’d toss out the sign I once hung on Tish’s nursery wall that read: “Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright.” I’d replace it with Buechner’s “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”

  * * *

  Since I don’t believe in lying to Tish anymore, I’ve been brainstorming simple ways to adjust my nightly vow to her and make it true. It’s been tricky. For example, I could tuck her in, smile at her, and say, “Lights out, honey. You’re definitely gonna lose me.” But that’s a bridge too far, perhaps.

  Here’s where I’ve landed. Here’s the promise and hope I have for Tish, for myself, for all of us:

  “Good night, baby. You’re never gonna lose you.”

  I am lying on the couch, enjoying my favorite pastime, which is watching very bad television. I have been sober for eighteen years, and during that time every single one of my painkillers has been taken from me. I no longer drink, do drugs, binge and purge, snark incessantly, or even shop compulsively (often). But I can promise this: They will take Bravo and HGTV from my cold, dead hands.

  An intriguing televised situation unfolds in front of me. The host of the show I am watching is a rugged, outdoorsy-type man. He has gone out into the woods by himself. He seems to have done this on purpose, so right away I understand that he is very strange. The man gets himself lost in these woods. I do not know why he didn’t see this lostness coming, but he seems surprised, so I feel worried. There appears to be no rescue in sight. There appears to be nothing in sight, except for various animals and plants and mud and other natural things that are perhaps typical of the woods. I can’t be certain because I’ve never been in the woods since woods are not for people.

  Our Survivorman has not eaten for days. He is also out of water. My superpower is empathy, which means that I am often unable to distinguish between what is happening to other people and what is happening to me. So, when my wife walks into the family room, she finds me curled up in a ball beneath a blanket, slowly dying from malnutrition and thirst.

  She raises her eyebrows. “You okay, honey?”

  I say, “No. Look at this. I think he’s going to die. He is lost in the woods, and he is starving. I really don’t see how we’re going to get out of this one.”

  My wife says, “Okay, babe. Remember what we talked about. How reality TV works is: If you are seeing it here, there has to be a camera crew there. Which means there’s also likely a protein bar available. He is definitely going to be okay, honey.”

  I am grateful for this reminder, as it allows me to come out from under my blanket and watch the rest of the show with some boundaries. Boundaries are just what I need in order to take in the lesson Fraudulent Survivorman is about to teach me.

  He says that when someone is lost in the woods, the main objective is to get found. The best way to get found is to stay in one place. Unfortunately, if one is lost in the woods, she cannot stay in one place, because she has to go out and try to find food and supplies to survive.

  What I am gathering is that in order to survive, a lost person must:

  Stay in the same place; and

  Not stay in the same place.

  Uh-huh. This is why the woods are not for people, I think. I keep listening.

  Fraudulent Survivorman has a solution. He says the most effective strategy that a lost person can use to increase her likelihood of getting found and thriving is this:

  She must find herself a Touch Tree.

  A Touch Tree is one recognizable, strong, large tree that becomes the lost one’s home base. She can adventure out into the woods as long as she returns to her Touch Tree—again and again. This perpetual returning will keep her from getting too far gone.

  * * *

  I’ve spent much of my life lost in the woods of pain, relationships, religion, career, service, success, and failure. Looking back on those times, I can trace my lostness back to a decision to make something outside myself my Touch Tree. An identity. A set of beliefs. An institution. Aspirational ideals. A job. Another person. A list of rules. Approval. An old version of myself.

  Now when I feel lost, I remember that I am not the woods. I am my own tree. So I return to myself and reinhabit myself. As I do, I feel my chin rise and my body straighten.

  I reach deeply into the rich soil beneath me, made up of every girl and woman I’ve ever been, every face I’ve loved, every love I’ve lost, every place I’ve been, every conversation I’ve had, every book I’ve read and song I’ve sung, everything, everything, crumbling and mixing and decomposing underneath. Nothing wasted. My entire past there, holding me up and feeding me now. All of this too low for anyone else to see, just there for me to draw from. Then up and up all the way to my branches, my imagination, too high for anyone else to see—reaching beyond, growing toward the light and warmth. Then the middle, the trunk, the only part of me entirely visible to the world. Pulpy and soft inside, just tough enough on the outside to protect and hold me. Exposed and safe.

  I am as ancient as the earth I’m planted in and as new as my tiniest bloom. I am my own Touch Tree: strong, singular, alive. Still growing.

  I have everything I need, beneath me, above me, inside me.

  I am never gonna lose me.

  Just as I was about to fall asleep the other night, I heard a faint knock on my bedroom door. “Come in,” I said.

  Tish walked into my room and stopped at my bedside watery-eyed, apologetic. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Everything. But nothing. It’s not that anything’s wrong, really. It’s just—I’m all by myself in here. In my body. I’m just…lonely or something. I forget during the day, when I’m busy, but at night, in bed, I remember. I’m all alone in here. It’s scary.”

  Tish climbed into my bed. We laid our heads on one pillow and looked directly into each other’s eyes. We were searching, trying to find ourselves in each other, trying to blur the lines between us. We’ve been trying to blur them since the doctor first put Tish into my arms and I said, “Hi, angel.” Since I first leaned over and tried to breathe her into my own lungs. Since I first put my mouth next to hers and tried to swallow her sweet warm breath and make it mine. Since my molars would ache when I played with her toes and I’d understand why some animals eat their young. Tish and I have been trying to collapse the gap her birth created between us since we turned from one body into two. But our separation keeps getting wider with each step, each word, each passing year. Slipping, slipping. Hold my hand, honey. Come in. I’m scared, Mommy.

  I brushed a strand of her hair from her cheek and whispered, “I feel lonely in this skin, too. Remember when we were at the beach today, and we were watching that little girl wade into the waves and collect seawater in her little plastic buckets? Sometimes I feel like I’m one of those buckets of sea, next to other buckets of sea. Wishing we could pour into each other, mix together somehow, so we’re not so separate. But we always have these buckets between us.”

  Tish has always understood metaphors best. (That thing you feel but can’t see, baby, is like that thing you can see.) She listened as I told her about the buckets, and her gold-brown canyon eyes widened. She whispered back, “Yeah. It’s like that.”

  I told her that maybe when we were born, we were poured from our source into these tiny body buckets. When we die, we’ll be emptied back out and return to that big source and to each other. Maybe dying is just returning—back out from these tiny containers to where we belong. Maybe then all the achy separation we feel down here will disappear, because we’ll be mixed together again. No difference between you and me. No more buckets, no more skin—all sea.

  “But for now,” I told her, “you are a bucket of sea. That’s why you feel so big and so small.”

  She smiled. Fell asleep. I wa
tched her for a bit and whispered a little prayer into her ear: You are not the bucket, you are the sea. Stay fluid, baby.

  One morning, in the middle of the divorce, I called Liz to ask for parenting advice. Liz doesn’t have children, so she is still sane enough to have perspective.

  I said, “I know, I know, I know that all is well and everything is fine at the deepest level and all that shit. I know all of that. But I don’t know it today. I’m worried that I ruined them. They’re confused and afraid, and for Christ’s sake this is the one thing I swore I’d never do to them.”

  She said, “Okay, Glennon, here is what I see happening: Your family is together on an airplane right now. You are the flight attendant, and the kids are passengers on their first flight. The plane just hit some serious turbulence, and the airplane is bouncing.”

  “Yes,” I said. “That sounds about right.”

  “Okay. What do passengers do when turbulence hits? They look at the flight attendant. If the flight attendant appears to be panicked, the passengers panic. If the attendants are calm and steady, the passengers feel safe and follow suit.

  “Glennon, you’ve been flying and living long enough to know that while turbulence feels scary, it won’t take the plane down. Turbulence isn’t deadly, and neither is divorce. We survive these things. The kids don’t know this yet, so they are afraid. They are going to keep looking at your face for information. Your job right now is to smile at them, stay calm, and keep serving the freaking peanuts.”

  This is what I told myself every single day during the divorce, and a million times since: Keep serving the freaking peanuts, Glennon.

  I was talking to a friend about this parenting mantra and she said, “Yes, turbulence doesn’t take planes down. But planes do crash. What if the thing that’s shaking your family’s plane is real? What if your family actually is going down?”

  * * *

  A friend of a friend found out a year ago that her teenage daughter was dying of cancer. That’s not turbulence. That’s the crash we all fear. That’s a family going down with the full knowledge that they won’t all make it out alive.

  This woman started drinking and drugging, and she didn’t stop, so her daughter died while she was high. Her other two daughters watched their sister die without their mama present, because she had jumped ship. I think about this mother every day. I feel deep empathy for her. I also feel afraid for her. I fear that one day she will finally get still and that stillness will be so full of scalding regret that it will be impossible to stay.

  We don’t control the turbulence or tragedy that happens to our families. The plot of our lives is largely out of our control. We decide only the response of the main character. We decide whether we will be the one who jumps ship or the one who stays and leads.

  Parenthood is serving the peanuts amid turbulence. Then when real trouble hits—when life brings our family death, divorce, bankruptcy, illness—parenthood is looking at little faces and knowing that we are as afraid as they are. Parenthood is thinking: This is too much. I cannot lead them. But I will do the thing I cannot do.

  So we sit down next to our babies. We turn their faces toward ours until they are looking away from the chaos and directly into our eyes. We take their hands in ours. We say to them, “Look at me. It’s you and me. I am here. This is more real than anything out there. You and me. We will hold hands and breathe and love each other. Even if we are falling from the sky.”

  Family is: Whether we’re falling or flying, we’re going to take care of each other through the whole damn ride.

  Every generation of parents receives a memo when they leave the hospital with their baby.

  My grandmothers’ memo: Here is the baby. Take it home and let it grow. Let it speak when spoken to. Carry on with your lives.

  My mother’s memo: Here is your baby. Take her home and then get together each day with your friends who also have these things. Drink Tab before four o’clock and wine coolers after. Smoke cigarettes and play cards. Lock the kids out of the house and let them in only to eat and sleep.

  Lucky bastards.

  Our memo: Here is your baby. This is the moment you have been waiting for your entire life: when the hole in your heart is filled and you finally become complete. If, after I put this child in your arms, you sense anything other than utter fulfillment, seek counseling immediately. After you hang up with the counselor, call a tutor. Since we have been speaking for three minutes, your child is already behind. Have you registered her for Mandarin classes yet? I see. Poor child. Listen closely: Parent is no longer a noun—those days are done. Parent is now a verb, something you do ceaselessly. Think of the verb parent as synonymous with protect, shield, hover, deflect, fix, plan, and obsess. Parenting will require all of you; please parent with your mind, body, and soul. Parenting is your new religion, within which you will find salvation. This child is your savior. Convert or be damned. We will wait while you cancel all other life endeavors. Thank you.

  Now the goal of parenting is: Never allow anything difficult to happen to your child.

  To that end, she must win every competition she enters. (Here are your four hundred participation trophies, distribute accordingly.) She must feel that everyone likes and loves her and wants to be with her at all times. She must be constantly entertained and amused; every one of her days on Earth must be like Disneyland, but better. (If you go to actual Disneyland, get a fast pass because she should never be forced to wait. For anything, ever.) If other kids don’t want to play with her, call those kids’ parents, find out why, and insist they fix it. In public, walk in front of your child and shield her from any unhappy faces that might make her sad, and any happy faces that might make her feel left out. When she gets into trouble at school, call her teacher and explain loudly that your child does not make mistakes. Insist that the teacher apologize for her mistake. Do not ever, ever let a drop of rain fall upon your child’s fragile head. Raise this human without ever allowing her to feel a single uncomfortable human emotion. Give her a life without allowing life to happen to her. In short: Your life is over, and your new existence is about ensuring that her life never begins. Godspeed.

  We got a terrible memo.

  Our terrible memo is why we feel exhausted, neurotic, and guilty.

  Our terrible memo is also why our kids suck.

  They do, they just suck.

  Because people who do not suck are people who have failed, dusted themselves off, and tried again. People who do not suck are people who have been hurt, so they have empathy for others who are hurt. People who do not suck are those who have learned from their own mistakes by dealing with the consequences. People who do not suck are people who have learned how to win with humility and how to lose with dignity.

  Our memo has led us to steal from our children the one thing that will allow them to become strong people: struggle.

  Our terrible memo is also why we stay busy with the trivial while the world our children will inherit crumbles. We obsess over our children’s snacks while they rehearse their own deaths in active-shooter drills at school. We agonize over their college prep while the earth melts around them. I cannot imagine that there has ever been a more overparented and underprotected generation.

  New memo:

  Here is your baby.

  Love her at home, at the polls, in the streets.

  Let everything happen to her.

  Be near.

  When Chase was little, we’d find him at our kitchen table drawing maps of the world and making lists of every country on Earth and its capital. He’d pass entire afternoons writing his own song lyrics, and we’d collect little poems he’d left all over the house.

  When he turned thirteen, we bought him a cell phone because he desperately wanted one and we wanted to make him happy. Slowly we watched him fade away. He stopped drawing maps and reading and writing, and we stopped finding poe
ms around the house. When he was with us, I could sense his need to be there instead. So even when he wasn’t on his phone, he was gone. He was just hovering among us. His eyes changed. They became a little duller and heavier. They’d been the brightest eyes I’d ever seen, and then, one day, they just weren’t. In his phone, Chase had found a place easier to exist in than inside his own skin.

  That was tragic, because inside the itchiness of our own skin is where we discover who we are. When we are bored, we ask ourselves: What do I want to do with myself? We are guided toward certain things: a pen and paper, a guitar, the forest in the backyard, a soccer ball, a spatula. The moment after we don’t know what to do with ourselves is the moment we find ourselves. Right after itchy boredom is self-discovery. But we have to hang in there long enough without bailing.

  There is so much about phones and children that parents worry about. We worry that we are raising children with commodified views of sex, lack of real connection, filtered concepts of what it means to be human. But I find myself worrying most that when we hand our children phones we steal their boredom from them. As a result, we are raising a generation of writers who will never start writing, artists who will never start doodling, chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen, athletes who will never kick a ball against a wall, musicians who will never pick up their aunt’s guitar and start strumming.

  I was once talking to a Silicon Valley executive who had played an integral role in the creation and proliferation of cell phones. I asked how old her kids had been when she’d bought them phones. She laughed and said, “Oh, my kids don’t have phones.” “Ah,” I said. Don’t get your kids high on your own supply. Those who made the phones are creative people, and they want their children to become people who create, not just consume. They don’t want their children searching for themselves out there; they want them discovering themselves in here. They know that phones were designed to keep us addicted to exterior life and that if we never dive inward, we never become who we were meant to be.