Page 13 of All the Way to the River

G abriel García Márquez once wrote that every person has three lives: “a public life, a private life, and a secret life.”

In the years after Rayya Elias moved into my church, I certainly had all three of those.

That was my public life, and it looked good.

As for my private life, it was good. Out of respect for my ex-husband—a man whom I still care about and admire dearly—I will share nothing further in these pages about him, other than to say that we were always good to each other, that we loved each other, and that we are still kind to each other.

But I had a secret life, too.

And in my secret life, I wasn’t doing so hot.

I wasn’t acting out in my sex and love addiction, but I was almost never not tense and afraid.

I was hardly ever not worried that my life was going in the completely wrong direction, that I had made all the wrong choices, that I was a fraud, that there was something fundamentally bad and wrong about me, and that I should be ashamed of myself.

These feelings had nothing to do with my career, with my marriage, or with anything that was going on inside or outside my home.

They were just the feelings I’d always had—the foundational doubts and fears that festered at the core of my being.

I’d always felt like there was something wrong with me, something missing, something contaminated in my groundwater.

Even on my best days (and there were so many best days back then!) I still felt low-key bewildered and unsafe.

But I kept those feelings secret because they seemed ungrateful, given my multitude of blessings.

Anyway, I was accustomed to that sense of dis-ease.

Because that’s just how life feels, right? Terrifying and nerve-racking?

And listen, I worked hard to be happy back then, and to keep my head above water.

Gratitude lists and exercise, self-help books and personal-growth programs, and quality time with loved ones.

Staying out of trouble and living an exemplary life.

Seeking professional help and therapies of all kinds when I needed extra support.

But I also drank every day. Maybe not a huge amount of alcohol, by some people’s standards, but I certainly needed to drink every day, and I also needed to take sleeping pills every night. I messed around with weed, too. And I was constantly on and off antidepressants and antianxiety medication.

I took refuge in my work, my friends, my marriage, my garden.

I tried to help everyone out.

I kept giving, and giving, and giving.

So many good things, happening all around me!

So many good things, being created through me!

Still, the feeling of “not okay” persisted.

“Where is God in this story?” my sponsor might ask me today, if I were to report such a batch of unsettled feelings.

Well … that would be an extremely good question.

I could not have told you where God had gone.

The loving deity whose compassionate voice I’d first heard on the bathroom floor during my divorce seemed very far away during those flush and shiny post– Eat Pray Love years.

The spiritual practices I had studied with such discipline at the ashram in India had long been neglected, as I’d returned to my old habit of trying to control the world in order to feel safe within it.

Yoga had been replaced by going to the gym; meditation had been replaced by hard work and good deeds; a search for divinity had been replaced by constant overachieving and a nonstop hustle for approval.

Another way to say it is this: I had taken my life back into my own hands.

I was working hard, yes, but I was the one who was doing all the work—struggling to keep myself afloat; striving to fix, manage, and control pretty much everything; battling against reality whenever and wherever reality did not please me; and fighting to keep all internal and external chaos at bay.

This is the exact opposite of spiritual surrender, and it will tire a body out.

But if you’d asked me how I was doing back then, I would’ve told you I was doing great!

Because it was true: I was doing great—compared with how I used to be doing.

Without a doubt, these were the happiest and most stable years of my life thus far. And I was truly amazed by all my abundance, proud of my fidelity to my marriage, and grateful for my blessings.

It’s just that I didn’t know how to stop feeling exhausted, frightened, and ashamed.

But I kept all that dark stuff hidden.

Until into my life—into my secret life—stepped Rayya.