The Basement
When you’re young fear manifests itself in going to the basement.
Sure, the usual Tween angst that walks down the hall next to you and let’s just the hem of your dress quiver while you share a presentation to a full class, is there. It’s fears very distant and adorable (in a weird way) little cousin. It’s the sweaty palms and the self-loathing and the wonder if he’ll ever acknowledge your note that you almost strategically bypassed being read by placing it in a pocket within a pocket of a backpack he rarely opened according to his grades. That angst is there. But fear? The kind that convinces you there is a shadow or a light flicker and reason to run up just the last four steps at the top in case it’s long arm snatches you as you approach your escape. That fear stays in the basement.
The thing about the basement is we avoid going there. We use it for overstuffed winter coats in garish shades of magenta, items worth regifting but never using and just enough space for the imminent Unwanted; feelings, objects, memories and miscellaneous. We carve out corners to pile the forthcoming bullshit and then we walk back upstairs, shut the door, pour a glass of wine and turn on an episode of The Good Wife.
The basement, is my anxiety. A space I’ve become accustomed to ignoring, but knowing that there’s always a chance it’ll be Thursday at 4pm and I have to grab a fucking jacket. No one talks about it that way. We don’t sit down and say, “hey guys, I have this huge basement full of junk and it’s super dark and super creepy, wanna check it out?” We don’t do that because it’s not shiny, it’s not sexy. There aren’t hors d'oeuvres there and typography posters with power phrases beckoning your greatest self into full bloom. It’s a place that is overwhelming and requires brooms. Brooms mean work. And work unless falsely glamorized with a “get up and get shit done, #bossbitch,” hashtag is also not something we want to admit we’re doing. Especially when it’s PowerPoints, brooms, drawing your navel to your spine, or saying “I validate what you’re saying,” in the midst of a squabble. We WORK really hard on things that are not interesting every single day and that, over time, measure the validity and quality of our character. The character that then turns around and attempts to make it all look easy-breezy.
Admitting that your successes have been measured in getting down on your knees in a dark corner covered in cobwebs and dirt for 6 months straight is looked upon with the equivalent of admitting you’ve spent half of your year cleaning a toilet. Self work can be glossed over as fun and uplifting when we equate it to having read-that-one-self-help-book, attending a Women’s conference, wearing a affirmation-slogan raglan tee, or spending a Friday night with a Ted Talks playlist queued up. All of which is the icing of self-work. It’s the top layer that tastes good and feels good and you’d always like an extra side. But then there is and will always be the fucking basement.
And you know what’s down there? Some shit you don’t want put as a status update. The time it was too late to go, the roads were barely drivable, your shoes were wrong and he didn’t know the word “No.” The 23 or 24 that paid duel-bills instead of paying dues, the 27 that started thinking she wasn’t as good as she once thought and the 29 that worries she may be right. Some things that when initially stored deserved a respite for your courage to grow before facing them.
Underneath all of these unmentionables, all of the unwanted, there is a whole room of space that we refuse to walk into because even though it’s always hard to find the light, there is more there than “junk” if we can learn to see it that way. There are answers to questions and reasons for excuses. There are shells and ghosts and reminders of who you are and that is always, always a good thing when you’ve forgotten. There is the possibility to start, rather than excavate, USE the “stuff,” and the enormity of the space. When we rarely visit a place, we don’t have the time to see all of the ways in which it can be turned into something better than how we found it. Our vision hasn’t caught up with us yet, because we haven’t given its power enough time to fully see what it’s working with.
I’ve started going there, to the basement. A lot. It’s all the cliche and all the mess you’d imagine that it would be, but things are moving. There’s the hyper-aware effort to reverse patterns, carve new mind-grooves and trust I can always go back to the light upstairs if I need to. Some shoulder crying. A lot of “no,” and new boundaries. Dust is shaking and as hope would have it it’s catching that single ray of light in the crack of the window you hardly knew was there and it’s sparkling just a little bit.
Talk about it. Acknowledge the fear, the stuff. It may not have been a year measured in milestones in the typical sense, not all of them will be nor should be. That which we cannot see is just as valuable and worthy a pursuit for resolve. So, go on. Open the door.
