Last night, while thinking about my upcoming birthday, I was reflecting on a Wednesday evening in Cardiff in 2012 that, in retrospect, was a turning point in my life.
The week I moved to Cardiff, I found a place to live in Llandaff North, outside of Cardiff city centre (with a housemate who would later become one of my dearest friends and a soul sister who shows me what owning your power with kindness looks like). My father had come with me initially in the hopes that we could get some quality father-daughter-adventure-travel time in the week before I started my University activities. First, we explored Cardiff, walking the city centre, the University, and the Bay by eating, drinking, and merry-ing our way through the city. Then, we took a train to bluebell hill-nestled Caerphilly where we ate delicious soft cheese and drank even more beer in a stuffy, crowded pub full of old men with thick accents and dancing eyes. We shuffled through the rain to Caerphilly castle, first constructed in the 13th century with its own (now) leaning tower and a real mote. The castle had very recently been the site of a Doctor Who episode. I excitedly, and a bit mournfully, stood on the patch of dead grass that the Tardis had just left behind.
Our next venture took us west on a train to Swansea, birthplace of Dylan Thomas, home of Wales’ first football team to enter the Premier League, and location of Wine Street (where I would months later stumble through a drunken crowd with four friends, get pushed to the ground, vomit on the street, and then put back up on my feet by the largest man I’ve ever seen in real life). On that rainy day, my dad and I ducked into a pub on Wine Street to stop and eat lunch. The pub was warm and welcoming with its old, worn pine floors, small rooms, low ceilings, and had a lit fireplace in every room. As we were ordering our beer, a shorter man wearing a fedora walked in and waved hello to the bartender. He looked a bit younger than my dad but he was dressed as though he were much younger. He had the flair of an artist of some sort. I had just ordered cockles and laverbread from the server, when the man in the fedora directed the question at my dad and me, “are you American?” The man introduced himself as Ady. This began a whirlwind of an afternoon that lasted until after midnight. Ady was a lifelong musician, resident of nearby Port Talbot, and apparently knew everyone, everywhere. He took us to pub after pub, introducing us to Welsh men and women full of character, colorful stories, Welsh phrases, and drinking tips. Before we knew it, we had new friends buying us rounds of Welsh whiskey and inviting us to Sunday roast. Next, we grabbed a taxi with Ady, our entertainment tour guide, to Port Talbot. I remember thinking that Port Talbot reminds me of most rundown, small towns in Michigan if the buildings were older and closer together and everyone were driving on the other side of the road. We sang robustly with our new friends into the night before they generously offered us their couches and spare bedrooms. However, my dad and I left Ady to take the very last train back into Cardiff exchanging looks that said, “what the hell just happened?!” I'm inclined to have adventures like these.
Around two months later, as I made my way to class down the tree-lined Taff trail, I received a text from an unfamiliar number. It was Ady. He was coming to Cardiff for the day and was wondering if he could buy me a nice dinner. Although the guy had to be in his late fifties, he was very interesting and was good company. Plus, I was a starving grad student who would really appreciate a nice, real grown-up dinner out. So, I agreed and met him later that night at the city centre.
The dinner was at a nice restaurant on Mill Lane and we were seated at a cozy window table lit by candles and fairy lights. The dinner started lightly and happily enough with a bottle of wine and appetizers. Ady told funny stories about gigs he’s played, places he’s travelled, beaches he's slept on, girlfriends he’s had, girlfriends he wished he had, girlfriends he wish he didn’t have, and “helpful tips” for me about men. After the start of the second bottle of wine, the conversation got deeper. I noticed that Ady told stories as though he were performing them. He was charming and entertaining and although he had many stories, he was still intriguingly mysterious.
Finally, at the bottom of the second bottle, Ady confessed to me, “Today is my sixtieth birthday.”
This interesting, funny, talented Welsh musician spent his sixtieth birthday dinner with an American woman he’d met only once…two months prior.
That. That was the turning point. Sure, I had a fine evening, Ady went back home and I took a taxi back to my house with a wine buzz and a full belly, but I felt unsettled, as though something inside me had finally woken up after a long nap and began stirring restlessly. I wasn't sure what it was at first.
Although he made it clear that he didn’t feel sorry for himself as he went home alone, I recognized the hint of loneliness in Ady that creeped out of his eyes, threatening to give him away. Ady had all the freedom in the world, a feeling I had been chasing my entire adult life. I knew that I was walking straight down the same path he, and so many others I had met, had already cleared. It actually turns out that Ady didn’t have the freedom he thought he did. He didn’t realize he was trapped by fear, pride, habits, and beliefs that kept people just close enough yet still at arm’s length. Ady knew everyone, but no one knew Ady. Not really. And I suddenly knew that I didn’t want to be Ady. Finally I saw that I wanted a different way.
I realized just how good I had gotten at keeping people just close enough so that I could get a bit of relief from loneliness yet I kept them far enough away to stay "free" and "safe". I didn't want anyone to see my weaknesses, my failures, my inadequacies, or my heart.
I was living the emotional equivalent of eating rice cakes: it was leaving me hungry and unsatisfied.
For people like Ady and me, it’s not difficult or risky to make new friends or to get people to like us and enjoy our company. It’s not frightening to travel anywhere alone, to have wild stories about strangers with accents, to try food from a different culture and not be exactly sure what's in it. That's actually very easy. For people like us, the real adventure is in baring ourselves fully, authentically. The real wild story for me is when I let someone see me give it my all, only to fail; to let he or she see that I might not be as clever as I wish; to let someone know that walking away would indeed break my heart. For me, true adventure is when I disappoint someone in order to finally understand that it doesn’t mean he or she stops loving me, and then practicing the same when he or she disappoints me. I plan to continue to wander and collect new adventurous stories and memories, of course, but to step in front of someone and have them see my faults, my mistakes, my fears, my weaknesses, my vulnerabilities, my ignorance, and my dark side is my biggest adventure yet.
I never saw Ady again, sadly. I think about him sometimes, grateful that I had him to show me who I didn’t want to become. I think I’m traipsing down my own path now, machete in hand, clearing my way forward. I’ve got an amazing partner who is sticking around as I slowly and bravely bare my many layers. It's frightening and uncomfortable but instead of feeling confined, I actually feel even more free.
Best of all, instead of settling for rice cakes, I’m enjoying full course dinners.
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