Trusting the Life Process, Part I

The day one of my PhD supervisors referred to life and all its facets as a process, I felt like my brain was breaking. What did she mean by "the life process?" 

It took me a long time to understand life as a process like a PhD candidature, writing a blog, or travelling to San Fransisco. All have a beginning, middle, and end. However subtle or radical, a change occurs between the start and end. 

The mentorship and friendship with this woman, whom I'll refer to as Star, were indeed a process. She changed and saved my life after the PhD process was complete. During my PhD, her mind intrigued me like no one else. Never, for a second, would it have occurred to me that the role she would go on to play in my life would prevent me from dying and reveal thriving as an option to someone like me.

Two years after my PhD I met with Star. I was dangerously unwell as my conditions had taken over, and I was without the necessary means or essential resources. I'd barely managed to get out of a toxic relationship alive. Star had been diagnosed with cancer before meeting me at the cafe that day. 

I had a thin presence of mind, a few boxes of belongings and a contract with a publisher, even though I was too unwell to write and about to be homeless. But I knew Star was not about to die, so I told her that. She told me I was going to help her write about trauma and organised a place for me to rent at an affordable price. She is why I had a place to live for three years—an experience of home stability I'd never experienced.

I openly discussed cancer with Star and how we could use apt cancer metaphors throughout her life story. It's how we structured her memoir. Star, even through chemotherapy was more alive than life itself. She'd be why I'd get out of bed, open the curtains, get on the tram with her to an art gallery and discuss art over food I found incredibly difficult to eat and digest.

We were perfect allies in our respective processes. I was afraid of the life process, and she embraced it fearlessly. I was scared of food, and she relished eating and preparing it like a Michelin-star chef. I'm very comfortable discussing trauma, death, and cancer, so I listened to Star recount a series of life processes that made up her story. Each session, what she shared inspired my spirit with what it was possible to live through and thrive beyond. She turned devastating experiences into personal triumphs of soul and character, carving a magnificent life forward.

She taught me about trusting the life process and taking things one step at a time. Every week and whenever possible throughout Covid, we'd have coffee, and she'd talk, sharing the turning points in her life. None of it was about leaping across chasms or scaling mountains in a single bound but rather about embracing the continuous effort required and incremental progress that led her to accomplish raising two children, returning to school at 35 to become a university professor, buying her own home, securing her finances, travelling, and living a fulfilling and adventurous life in the arts and academic world with the love of her life. 

During this time, with her illuminating presence in my life, I reclaimed my will to live and overcame the obstacle of getting my body to relax enough to keep down food and sleep. She fought cancer like a warrior I can only aspire to become. Both of us took our process one step at a time. 

No matter how small, each step contributes to the greater whole of life's process and the multitude of stages and processes that take place within it. Each step lays the foundation for what lies ahead. 

"Trust the process," Star said. To this day, trust, in all its forms, is the hardest thing for me to do wholly. But I'm much better at it because I know her.

Star taught me that my perception of myself as a failure and the shame I felt about my life at 35 were the most significant obstacles in my way. She said she'd never encountered someone with so much shame. It took me a long time to understand that what she said was true. I was 100% ashamed of not being able to get over how my past impacted me. I hated myself for it still affecting all aspects of life despite having spent since I was 14 trying to fix myself and overcome it. I hadn't found a way to make the rest of my life work. Nothing I'd tried held water. I didn't know what else I could do or attempt to create a life that allowed me to function and afford to exist sustainably.

I don't know if Star cared so much to snap me out of the shame and perceived failures, defeating my will to live and keeping me hiding from life because her past wasn't dissimilar from my own. All I know is my depth of appreciation for Star's generosity, and time has no end.

We all need a Star throughout our life process.

Star is a force of nature with a firey spirit. She is proud of herself and how far she's come despite the devastation and trauma she'd experienced since birth. She's a natural-born storyteller and enigmatic. I listened to her tell me her memoir, chapter by chapter. The process broke my heart and put it back together better.

I was 35 when she went through the chemotherapy process that gave her a second chance at life. She loves the sun and surf and the opportunity to enjoy her retirement in a better climate. She said she was 35 when she returned to school and changed her life into the middle-class experience it is now. And she did it all while raising two kids alone until she met the woman who would become her life partner—the artist who owned the house full of art that I had rented for three years at a price I could afford. 

Star always felt like she needed to move faster and expressed frustration with her aging body and fatigue throughout her recovery. She soldiered on in ways I couldn't at that time, even though I was half her age. 

So, I stumbled behind her, trying to catch up to this remarkable woman's ability to decimate adversity like a warrior. It took me a long time to understand that her life process wasn't mine, despite how much we had in common. What she's achieved, I never will, regardless of how much I'd wanted to. However, my falsely perceived failures and shame are gone.

I see now—instead, they are correct detours that align me with a different trajectory—one outside the academic world and within the world of art and public speaking on invisible disability and having a neurodivergent brain. Nonetheless, one day, like Star and another life mentor I'm yet to blog about, I will return to the writing process to share my life story.