A Ghost

Life is teaching me how lonely it can feel to build something that nobody around me understands. I live in a house with seven people, my husband and our sons, and I am the only woman. When I sit down to code, I am usually working by myself. I have been earning certificates, starting a webpage, and building app prototypes that take a great deal of thought and patience. The work is mentally hard, especially when something breaks and I have to teach myself how to fix it. Most days, nobody asks what I learned or wants to hear the details of what I am trying to create.

A house can be full of people and still leave one person feeling like a ghost.

That feeling catches in my throat more often than I admit. Sometimes I wonder whether I will ever have someone I can confide in about the ideas that interest me and the work I am trying to build. I want a conversation that can hold my wonder and my pain without making me feel like I am too much or asking for too much. When I picked up Jack Kornfield's The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace, it opened to a passage from the Tao Te Ching about finding peace in the heart even amid great pain. I kept looking at those words because I am often physically in the room while trying to push away what I feel. Part of the reason I keep learning and building is that it gives my mind somewhere useful to go while I protect my sobriety. Being present with myself means noticing my work, speaking kindly inside my own mind, and forgiving the ways I treated myself during addiction. Right now, life is teaching me that presence may be the first peace I can give myself.