Commencement

A friend recently shared with me the old Yiddish adage, “Man plans, and God laughs.” Even for a guy who isn’t sure about god anymore, that hits hard. 

And then I recently turned 45. Only a year ago, maybe two, I turned 40. At least that's what it feels like.

Those two thoughts merge here because my 40th birthday felt like a big deal – a mile marker that left me keenly aware of my mortality in ways I hadn’t been before. In the days surrounding that birthday, I took careful stock of my first 40 years of life, looking for angles and hoping I could build on all I had learned (mostly from my myriad mistakes) to maximize the years that remained.

At the time, what lay ahead felt mostly plotted out. I really only foresaw play at the margins, and I envisioned years ahead of incremental improvements, with the unstated hope that somewhere in those improvements, I’d find happiness. I was still heavily entrenched in Mormonism then (with no thoughts of ever leaving). I had a job I loved and planned to never leave. And while I’d had a long dysfunctional marriage, we were working on it – at least in theory. The promise of healing always seemed somewhere just out of sight, somewhere beyond the horizon. And maybe that hope, combined with the terrifying impossibility of divorce, was enough to stave off any thoughts of ending things. 

That’s my best guess, at least.

But even if I put aside the pandemic, it hardly feels like hyperbole to note that my life has been almost completely upended in the last five years. In fact, it’s slightly amusing to think just how bent out of shape 40-year-old Aaron might be if he could see what was ahead. I can imagine his utter confusion, morphing into abject horror. And then a lingering, sinking feeling in his stomach that would give way to knots that keep him awake at night.

As I look back now, I feel for him. But then I can also smile a little, because I know it’s going to be ok for him. He will go through so many levels of Hell in the next five years (and he really has no idea), but he’s going to be ok.

In fact, he’s going to be so much more than ok.

45-year-old Aaron

The Upheaval

If you’re reading this, you’re almost surely aware that four years ago, I began what would become a fairly public transition away from Mormonism. At the time, I could hardly imagine anything more difficult: leaving a high-demand religion that I heavily invested in for four decades – a religion that provided a worldview I built my entire life around – was absolutely terrifying. It shook the very foundations of my reality.

As I tried to pick up the pieces in the aftermath, I channeled that pain and disorientation into a series of public blog posts over the course of roughly 15 months. I’m not sure I’ve ever poured my heart and energy into anything more than I did that project. I’m so pleased with how it turned out.

And then more recently, after 16 years, I left the Department of Justice and my position as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Utah. I loved that job so much, and I was all but certain I’d never leave it — until my circumstances all but demanded it.

Those “circumstances” involved an impending divorce, after nearly 23 years of marriage.

**** 

A few years ago, I wrote candidly about my marriage in the context of my faith transition. In that post, I tried to be so careful in walking the tightrope of explaining our years of difficulty without oversharing and without glossing over the reality of just how difficult things had been.

At the time I wrote it, I felt like we’d moved through our difficulties toward a healthy, functional relationship.

Now. . .well, time has now proven those feelings were mostly aspirational.

The hardly veiled subtext in that difficult post was that, for as long as I can remember, ours had been an affectionless marriage. From my perspective, Michelle’s romantic inclinations for me died not long after we married, though Michelle puts the date years later. Either way, we both seem to agree (now) that had been our reality for at least the last 14-15 years.  

We can venture guesses as to why, though even educated guesses don’t feel helpful here and now. We did, however, spend years and years in counseling trying to bridge that divide — often with (LDS oriented) counselors assuring us with some version of if we did all Mormon things, God would heal our marriage.

Not exactly, it turns out.

I wrote that post in earnest in late 2019, and the tribute I paid to Michelle then still mostly holds, almost to the letter. But as time marched on, the dysfunction between us became painfully obvious, the gnawing loneliness I felt harder and harder to ignore or explain away.

By late September 2022, despite what felt like our best efforts, the decades of distance had calcified into a hopeless impasse. Or maybe they had long since calcified, but it was only at that point we could no longer pretend otherwise.

We (I) needed to end our marriage.

And to do that, I soon had the sinking realization that I had to leave my job.

The heavy months that followed were a mournful mixture of plotting and planning, including the slow reveal to trusted friends and family – some of whose help I needed.

We told the kids a few weeks before Christmas. We told the world after I’d filed in late January.

Too many already know that divorce is hell, even when mostly amicable. In fact, that descriptor hardly feels sufficient, so let me amend that statement a bit with my now expanded vocabulary: for me, divorce was fucking hell.

At least for my part, the process of separating brought me to the lowest moments of my life.

In fact, one practically sleepless night in early February, I spent what felt like hours in the early morning heaving in uncontrollable sobs on my couch. I had never felt so completely alone. I had never felt *that* hopeless. In the darkness, I worried whether I would ever be functional again. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to hold onto my new job. I worried that I’d never again be able to sleep through the night.

And while I was not suicidal, I was in such pain that I wondered if death wasn’t the only way to stop feeling such all-consuming anguish.

In those terribly vulnerable moments, I almost begged for the chance to reverse course on our divorce. Except by then it was too late.

Beyond that harsh reality, there was also the painfully stark reminder of my surroundings: our living room was lined with years of family photos, all staring sadly at me. You see, I could detail the empty longings I felt in Every. Single. One. of those photos. In fact, the truth is that I’ve hardly ever been able to look at any of our family photos without sensing a kind of cruelty in the feigned closeness of our smiles, in the depictions of physical proximity that belied the isolating distance between us.

In those dark hours, I felt so completely broken. And further, I felt so foolish that I had ever dared to feel otherwise.

****

Fortunately, at that lowest point, I had mind enough to send a desperate text to a few people close to me. My brother Matt, out of town, read it and got ahold of my mom, who I had not been close to for years. She called immediately, and I reluctantly answered. And when I couldn’t stop sobbing on the phone, she told me to come over right then (or she was coming to my house).

I drove the few miles to her home, still crying uncontrollable tears the entire time. Another friend, Christopher Beesley, called me on the way, catching more than his fair share of my anguish. Mom met me in her driveway, hugged me tightly, and ushered me inside. I sank into her couch as she held my hand, and I told her everything that was in my heart.

There, at what felt like my lowest point, I started to rebuild my life.

Commencement 

I’ve titled this post “Commencement” because it feels (at least now) like a story of beginnings. Beautiful beginnings. But the thing is, as I’ve tried to write about this experience of starting over, I cannot meaningfully parse that beauty from the painful endings that preceded them.

Nor, frankly, do I even want to.

To borrow Mary Oliver’s challenging metaphor, it’s my sense now that these various “box[es] full of darkness” were also gifts. Sure, the loss of my faith, my marriage, and my career were “gifts” I didn’t want (and I certainly never asked for), but I cannot bring myself to wish them away now.

[And please, please understand, I can say this now only in hindsight. To have offered such hopeful forecasting to the guy in the middle of those “gifts” would have been a kind of cruelty.]

In fact, I want now to remember and hold onto every one of those feelings of heartache, loneliness, and brokenness. I need to, because otherwise, I lose the preciousness of what followed.

For instance, beyond those healing moments with Mom, there was the confiding in my friend Trinity in early October as we sat in the R&R BBQ parking lot, and I could not hold back tears. Trinity listened so quietly and gently to my bombshell, and our friendship grew exponentially in those moments. And in the days and months that followed, he moved heaven and earth to help me secure new employment. I could hardly ask for a more genuine and loyal friend, in a more critical time of life. Or for a more complete demonstration of kindness – kindness that I can never repay.

Then there was the sense of raw, anguished desperation that drove me to Mat and Brooke Shaw’s couch in late January, where I cried helplessly while curled in the fetal position. Mat and Brooke had sat alongside me so faithfully through the loss of my faith, and they listened still so gently to a somehow more painful development. So softly, they offered what comfort they could, with Brooke putting her hand on my shoulder at one point and whispering that it would be ok.

In that hour, Mat and Brooke met me (again) in my brokenness, and it is now one of the most cherished memories of my life.

I also need to remember the emptiness I felt as I packed up my belongings to move out of my home, and just how many friends and family met me in that emptiness. On a Friday morning in mid-February, they loaded and then unloaded my things with smiles, assembling new furniture and arranging items without asking – all while somehow making me feel as though I were doing them some service.

I could hardly tell them then (or now) how much that meant to me.

And then to have one friend, Jeremy Snow, unexpectedly at my door the next morning — the morning after my first night in my new home. Jeremy spent several hours visiting with me (and happily assembling more of my office furniture). And while I can’t remember the specifics of our conversation now, I remember how precious it felt. I remember, too, that he just wanted to make sure I knew I was loved and not alone.

I still can hardly look back on his visit without tearing up all over again.

Or my brother Matt’s perfect silence a few weeks later as we drove the lonely miles down to Valley of Fire, Nevada. He almost pretended not to notice my uncontrollable tears from a few feet away as we took in the barren landscape, and I felt the fresh sting of all I had lost. And then, after a long, long silence (and my tears had started to dry), he offered the gentlest words of encouragement — words that belied any hope that I’d been able to cry those tears in secret.

There are the cycling miles we put in that day, too, as I lagged behind most of the group, so heavy in my grief. Slowly, so slowly sometimes, I tried to pedal through that grief as I took in the breathtaking painted rocks. It seemed like l felt everything in those miles, including, eventually, something close to healing.

All the above doesn’t even take into account the texts and emails and phone calls and Facebook messages from more friends and loved ones than I can count, all of whom received the news of my divorce (and my loss of faith years prior) with such care and who took up the invitation to literally and figuratively sit with me in my grief.

There have been so many treasured visits to my new home, too, from friends and family anxious to mourn and laugh with me, to share in my food and deep conversation.

I wonder if there is anything more precious in this life than the pairing of good food and good conversation with your favorite people. I’m not sure there is. 

So while there has been (and may yet be) space for lamenting the difficulties of the last 5 years, I’m not in a place now where I can lament them. Removing those parts of my story would take from me too many moments of beauty and connection — too many moments that are unquestionably some of the most precious of my life.

As I have said so often before, I would not trade those memories (those difficulties) now for all the world.

****

But there is more here than just a reframing of hard things. There is this: I don’t seem to be nearly as broken as I felt in my lowest moments. 

I started to notice this even before I (re)started therapy. Somewhere in feeling my way through the darkness of self-doubt, a persistent bit of sunshine kept bubbling up to the surface:

I really, really like who I am.

Yes, there are parts of me that are hopelessly awkward, and parts of me that will (probably) always fall short of the ideal. But for as much as I fall short, I so love who I am becoming. I love the direction I’m heading. 

I love, for instance, the daily habits I’ve cultivated and refined over the years. Those habits stem so much less often now from a place of emptiness and insecurity (of trying desperately to be “enough”), and so much more from simply trying to live intentionally.

I love where those habits have led me. I love how they expand for me what is possible – in a day, in a year, in a life.

As is probably evident to everyone by now, I have also come to love good poetry, and I cherish how it calls to me and lifts me. In the framework of my past life, poetry has become a new form of scripture and reverie. Maybe even sometimes prayer, though I don’t use that word in the way that I used to. 

I also love this growing sense of curiosity and willingness to be vulnerable. I love the challenge of squaring up to the world each day with a determined openness.

I love the friendships I’ve made and strengthened, especially these last few years. And I love the growing feeling that rich connections and relationships are just around the corner. . .with just a little bit of bravery and kindness.

And speaking of bravery, can I share with you something that’s brought me so much joy in recent months?

About a year ago, I took up the personal challenge to try to do something “brave” every day. I’ve never defined the term, but it seems to mean finding the courage to do something uncomfortable — something that I am at least a little afraid of. Sometimes that’s meant big things (like tackling Big Cottonwood Canyon on my bike), but usually it’s meant little things. Often that challenge has been just the nudge I need to gather the courage to talk to people in situations where I’ve usually stayed sheepishly silent.

I’m not sure I can overstate how much that small shift in perspective has changed my life.

And yes, a lot of that has to do with the fact that I’ve started talking to people more. People I don’t know, in all sorts of situations, just trying to make micro connections. At the gym. In the grocery line. Sometimes even (gasp) on the elevator.

For instance, several weeks ago, I engaged my Uber driver in pleasant banter. Somehow, by the end of our 15-minute drive, the conversation had led us to talk earnestly with each other about divorce and moving through it. 

As these sorts of interactions have piled up, a curious thing has happened along the way. Somewhere in all these efforts, I’ve started to sense just how much people (on the whole) appreciate when others take a kind interest in them. I have always, always been so shy, and the thought that kept me from interacting with people I didn’t know, for all these years, was always some form of “Why would this person have any interest in talking with me? I'm not going to bother them.”

But as I’ve gotten brave enough to shift the focus away from myself and toward others — trying to notice something, anything about them that might lead to a kind observation — I’ve gotten to the point where I almost can’t help but talk to people now.

And here’s the thought that stopped me in my tracks recently (in the best of ways): this was how Dad always approached the world, how he approached others. I’ve even written before that one of Dad’s beloved hallmarks was that he “took an outsized interest in people” — the kind of interest that allowed him to talk to a janitor once who would remember that micro-connection years later.

I almost started crying at the thought that I’d somehow, impossibly, found a way to channel this most precious part of my dad, to keep him alive (in me) just a little more, for at least a little longer.

The world feels so much brighter in this space. So much more open and welcoming.

****

As for my career change, it’s true that I left a job I loved, a job I never planned to leave. That was very difficult.

Recently, though, I’ve explored Annie Duke’s research on the science of quitting. She posits that we humans don’t quit things enough (or soon enough) — that, like aging athletes who hang on long past their prime, we default to a status quo bias that often leaves us holding on to jobs, relationships, and circumstances long after it might better serve us to move on.

Because this tends to be our default, a forced change sometimes (often?) ends up being the best thing for us.   

I have a suspicion now that might be the case for my career.

Listen, I loved being a federal prosecutor. I loved the work I got to do. I loved the people I got to work with. I loved the lifestyle.

I had also grown very comfortable in that role.

And maybe there’s the crack of light. In my new role — partner at a law firm with a practice focusing on white collar criminal defense — I am uncomfortable all the time. Work on this side of the aisle, in the private sector, requires a much different (and expanded) skill set, and almost everything about the job has been so stretching and demanding.

But then, I hear that discomfort is really the only path to growth. Real, exponential growth anyway. And on my best days, I see that discomfort as yet another daily opportunity for bravery. At the same time, too, it helps that the people I get to practice with now have also quickly become some of my favorite people. They have been so patient and reassuring as I find my footing.

I will find my footing. And as I do, I have this growing feeling I’m really going to love this side of the work, too. 

****

As for the deeper, existential matters that I wrestled with (at length) in earlier posts, let me share where life has taken me these last few years: 

I have no more answers on those matters now than I had a few years ago. In fact, I may well have fewer.

But then also, having answers matters so much less to me now. I mean, of course I care about what’s to come, but that feels unknowable. And the fact is, I’ve already prepared myself for the worst.

Besides, I feel so much more settled now in searching curiously against a backdrop of a growing list of questions. Whether I find “answers” to those questions feels so much less important now than the people I get to search for them with, than the connections I want to make and strengthen with my fellow travelers as we walk each other home – whatever “home” ends up looking like.

Really, all I can be certain of is what I have in front of me right now. And, especially sensing this may be all I get, I want to make the most of this “one wild and precious life.”

I’m learning, too, that might mean spending some afternoons “just” feeding sugar cubes to grasshoppers.

I still prize kindness and integrity, but I’ve also added to that list now the companion virtues of curiosity and bravery. If it wasn’t already evident above, people and connections are what matter most to me now. And when I contemplate what a “good” life might look like for me in the end, I’m not sure I hope for much more than to feel present, grateful, and content as often as possible. 

For me, those are the seeds of wonder and awe, and I hope to drink in those feelings as often as I can.

****

Ah, but the truth is, there is more. I do, after all, hope to know love and companionship in ways I can’t remember knowing — in ways I’ve maybe never known. In that regard, the Raymond Carver poem “Late Fragment” has stirred something deep within me for years and called me to account:

It is not just romantic love I’m after, though.

An author I love recently pointed me to Maurice Sendak’s final public interview. Sendak wrote the beloved children’s book Where The Wild Things Are, a story I must have read to my children at least a hundred times in an earlier life (I can still quote most of that book from memory).

Prior to the interview, Sendak had lost someone very dear to him, and he knew he wasn’t long for this world either.

And yet he movingly expressed that he was “in love with the world.” An apparent atheist, he had no fear of his own death, but he confessed how hard it was to lose people he loved – how much losing them made him love them more:

“I have nothing but praise now, really, for my life. I mean, I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. I cry a lot because they die, and I can't stop them. They leave me, and I love them more....”

Moments later, Sendak poignantly acknowledged that “there are so many beautiful things in the world” and that he was ready to go. He described himself as “a happy old man” but that he would still “cry my way, all the way to the grave.”

His final words to the interviewer were to “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.”

So maybe this is my hope and my determination as I set out on this second half of life: that I, too, fall in love with the world and daily find ways to "Live [my] life. Live [my] life. Live [my] life."

I hope hope hope to stay open enough, to live bravely enough, to feel everything, “beauty and terror” as Rilke put it. I want to know the exultant joy of loving others with my whole soul, and I’m willing to know the exquisite companion pain of probably losing them.

And maybe, when the end comes for me (hopefully not for a while yet), Mary Oliver’s words will have become mine:

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

 

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

If I have made of my life something particular, and

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

Or full of argument.

 

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

 

I don’t know about you, but I’m determined not to end up “simply having visited this world.” Or to borrow from Thoreau, I’m damn well determined not to go the grave “with the song still in [me].” Not, at least, if I get to spend any bit of this great adventure walking alongside my friends and loved ones.

And if you’ve come with me this far, you must be one of those friends, right?

If not now, then soon enough, I should think. 

Either way, I'm *so* glad to have you here with me.