“I Won the Lottery!”
One Guy’s Phd: 17 Years of Pretty helpful Discoveries
No, I don’t have a formal PhD. (Barely earned my high-school diploma.) But flipping through my journals from the past 17 years, I noticed a lot of Pretty helpful Discoveries, many I was blind to at the time. Divorce triggered my journey to learn new stuff about myself. I gained a lot by staying open to new experiences — from above, below, cool people, odd shrinks, surreal events, personal injuries and way more. So if you’re into some laughs & new life-learnings through can’t-make-that-shit-up stories, join me. Together, maybe we can make a little more sense of who we are and where we’re headed. Here’s Chapter 1…
It was Halloween afternoon — a cold, clammy one at that — as I sputtered south on 35E just past St. Paul in my 1990 Black Jeep. I was on my way to one of those job interviews you bludgeon yourself all the way there asking, “Why am I going to this interview?”
Perfect. On the radio, The Current started playing “The Monster Mash.” (My demons mocking me in plain daylight?) At this point, I didn’t give a shit so I cranked it as a fun throwback hoping it’d distract me from all of the separation, financial and personal bullshit haunting me that year. Speakers crackled. Beakers bubbled. Bobby belted it out, with me howling right along with him…
Out from his coffin, Drac’s voice did ring
Seems he was troubled by just one thing
He opened the lid and shook his fist
And said, “Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?
Deep into the chorus that came next, I felt better already. Then I saw my cellphone light up on the empty passenger seat. Turned out to be the call to start a new life.
“Hello, Mr. Nielson?”
“Yes.”
“This is your attorney’s assistant. Your divorce was finalized in court today. When will you pay the bill?”
I put the zombies on hold, flicked off the radio, slowed and pulled over onto the shoulder. Fuck. It was real. This was happening. Just happened.
“Ya, thanks,” I choked out. “I’ll send a check tomorrow.”
Some guys win the lottery. I got divorced. Both are great opportunities for a life reset.
So began my journey to learn how I screwed up my marriage. It was my fault, right?
We’d been separated a couple of years but it was all still murky to me as to why. Kids didn’t get it: “You guys never fight.” Friends were confused: “You guys always have fun together.” I didn’t get it: “How come you never told me you were unhappy?” She always answered: “You should’ve known.”
I had tried everything to keep us together. Gave her super-nice birthday and anniversary cards on time. Said “I love you” on the way back home from a business trip to D.C. minutes after 9–11. Scrubbed the shit out of our shower doors since she said I had never done that.
Nothing worked.
Then one of the six or so marriage counselors we tried told me, “Look at you lounging on the couch. You look as slick as someone featured on the front cover of a glossy business magazine.” (I took that as a compliment at the time.)
More clueless than I had ever felt in my life, I found myself driving to a job interview my gut told me I had no business going to.
I got the job I didn’t want. It gave me everything I didn’t need.
No question I needed the income for the new Child and Spousal Support payments I had just been gifted. But what I really think I was reaching for was a new sense of belonging. “A new family,” of sorts that accepted me and loved me, yes actually loved me, for all of my faults they didn’t know about yet. I got that praise — along with a new job title and the sunny, corner office that delivered a desperately needed, straight-to-the-vein, shot of self-esteem.
But like with any drug, I paid a premium price for the short-term euphoria.
The place was wackadoo.
I should have bolted after I found myself scheming in a maintenance closet with the Operations and HR Directors. Actually, I strong-armed them into it.
“Guys, in here.”
“Where?”
“Here. Quick!” Practically shoving them in as I twisted the doorknob praying for the best (it opened!), they both shuffled into the six-by-four-foot room –damp dangling mops hanging from the walls and the intense stench of poisonous cleaning fluids immediately filling our lungs.
“Nielson, what the hell are we doing in here?”
“Look, we can’t talk openly about any of it out there. Everyone’s listening. And everyone’s talking to the owner. If they get wind of our plan, they’ll out us before we can get things in motion.”
“We’re crammed into a putrid cleaning closet in the middle of our office because we don’t trust the culture. How the fuck do we think we’re going to turn things around in one meeting.”
“It will work. We all believe that, don’t we?”
First the Operations Director. “It’s our last chance. I’m in.”
Then the HR Director. “This is fucked. I’ve never done anything like this in my entire career. I’m out.” And she left. The closet. And our team.
I spent a few more toxic years there trying to make it work. Maybe it was all just a test, I told myself. After all, the company’s mission was to “Help each other be our best at work.” I had to tough it out. I wanted to believe it was my new path to self-discovery, fame and fortune. Damn. I was ready to scrub the shower doors in our company bathrooms.
But it didn’t work. I knew it in my bones from the beginning. (Don’t we always?) Plus, my weekly boxed-wine tab was getting dangerously close to the amount of my monthly mortgage.
Marriage. Friends. Work. Happy Hour. They didn’t deliver the life I was searching for.
Cozy, comfortable marriage: Poof!
Status-laden job: Undependable.
New office mates: Lost in translation.
Single Happy Hours: Expensive, eventually pathetic.
Getting my life back in order was going to take a lot more work.
It was time to seriously transform my life, leaning into my favorite definition of transformation: Making barriers disappear you didn’t know existed.
It was time to wade into the swamplands of my soul.
Dramatic, I know, but it was one of the first books my post-divorce therapist recommended: Swamplands of the Soul by James Hollis. Based on Jung’s simple question, “Besides the roles you’ve played and who people have said you are, who are you?” Dark, piercing and unforgiving, I devoured that book determined to uncover parts of myself I’d missed in my shadows, behind walls I created and at the mucky bottom of my subconscious that scared the shit out of me to sift through. More on all of that in later chapters…
Here are a few other things I dove into seeking the key to unlocking the real me:
• Parker Palmer’s Center of Courage & Renewal on Bainbridge Island, WA
• Landmark Education Curriculum for Life
• Trips to Lithuania with my three daughters
• Myers Briggs, Gallup Strengths Finder, DiSC — everything short of shock therapy
• Flights to Planet Fungeye while writing my first graphic novel
• 30-day, Bikram Yoga challenges
• Co-founding a company called “Frank” to promote transparent communication in the heat of business change
• Humble hikes through the big city: Urban guides for the inner journey
• Six NaNoWriMo’s + the starts of hundreds of poems, short stories and children books
See. Lots to stick around for.
Follow me now.
I’ll share a couple of new stories each week, but what I’m really excited about, is reading your stories awakened by mine.
