Christy Wulff

As I turn thirty (shudder) I take inventory of my life.

House, check
Husband, check
Child, check
Job, check
Book deal, check.

I should be jumping for joy and on my knees every second of every day thanking God for all the blessings in my life. And I am thankful. At the same time, I wonder who the heck I am. All my life I have been someone’s something. Their daughter, her friend, his girlfriend, his wife, his mom but never just me. I think I am myself when I write, but I write from the point of view of a seventeen year-old girl. Now what the heck does that say about me? I have a theory. (You know I love the theories!)

When I was seventeen, I loved a boy and music with all my heart. And I mean every last ventricle. (I love him still but that’s neither here nor there.) He loved me too, as much as a teenage boy can love someone. And music was my life. Chorus, Musical Theater, all of it. Things with the boy ended, I was betrayed by a ‘friend,’ and ended up in the auditorium with slit wrists. Yes I know, but that’s not the bad part. At the suggestion of a therapist, I was pulled out of chorus and enrolled into the work release program. That hurt more than losing him. And every day when I would leave, I had to walk past the chorus room and hear them singing. It was like a knife in my soul. I think it’s still there.

Anywho..my theory. I don’t think I ever changed emotionally again. I grew older, but in my head, I swear, I am still seventeen. Ask anyone I know and they will back this up. I am that girl that says things she shouldn’t say and does things everyone else is thinking about but won’t. So now I’m thirty and I want to know who I am, or who I would have been if that didn’t happen. Would I have gone to Berklee and been a Musical Therapist? Would I sing at church? (I don’t sing in front of people anymore.) Would I have waited for him?

That’s my mission for the year. By the time I am thirty-one, I want to know without a shadow of doubt who the hell I am.

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I’m usually a planner. I like to know what’s going on, when, where, how… you get the point. I tend to think about something before I do it. ‘If I do X, then Y may happen, and if so, Z…but what if I do Z and Y happens? Then I’ll say X’ and so forth and so on. It is rare that I charge into a situation without a plan.

It’s happened twice in my life. Once was the night that two dogs attacked my cat, Gracie. I was sitting in the front room of our old house and heard some commotion. Knowing my kitty was outside, I glanced out the window and saw them fighting. I flew out the door, through the yard, across the street, and into the neighbor’s yard in nothing but a t-shirt and some undies. Looking back that was pretty stupid for a plethora of reasons. I could have cut my feet on something in the road or hidden in the grass. The dogs could have turned on me, or worst of all, some people could have seen just what Victoria’s secret was all about. But I didn’t think about any of that at the time. I just thought about my kitty who needed me. I’m sorry to say that she died two days later from her injuries. But I tried.

The next time that I literally went charging in was just a few days ago. The alligator that lives in our pond was heading right for the ducks that live in our pond and well, I wasn’t interested in hosting some National Geographic episode in my backyard. I ran toward all of them, totally prepared to throw myself into the water if the ducks didn’t fly away, which fortunately, they did. I don’t think I even need to point out all of the reasons why that was a bad idea.

Now while I am in agreement that these were both really careless ways to behave, I can’t help but yearn for that feeling of complete and total abandon. Looking only ahead, plowing forward at full-steam, tunnel vision for your goal and your goal alone. To be free of society’s expectations, life’s worries and heartaches would take away the fear that holds all of us back. While I can’t live like that, I can sure as hell write like that. And I will. Using adverbs as I please, starting and ending sentences with prepositions, and going crazy with the dialogue because that’s what’s really in my heart.

In memory of Gracie Trujillo 2008-2009

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Inventory

Running with Abandon