Confessions of a Rule-Follower

As if Monday mornings aren’t challenging enough, this particular Monday required me to appear at the Cook County Courthouse at 9:00 am. It was another steamy day, already 87 degrees, and a crash on the Kennedy slowed traffic to a snail’s pace. The SpotHero parking I paid for in advance turned out to be on Lower Wacker Drive instead of Upper Wacker Drive, which caused me to drive a little like Steve McQueen in Bullitt.

After waiting at a crowded elevator bank for four overloaded cars to ascend, it was my turn to shoot up to the 30th floor. It had been a long time since my last day in divorce court and thankfully this visit was routine: my oldest son just graduated from high school, or emancipated, as the legalese would have it, so we need to modify child support.

Two hours later, we were free to go. A headache I had been keeping at bay upgraded to a migraine as I drove home, and rushing inside, I promptly vomited.

I know what you’re thinking: it was a hellish, stressful morning and divorce court would make anyone sick.

But it wasn’t hellish. In fact, the whole morning went surprisingly well. Despite the challenges of getting there—challenges that once would have thrown me into panic—I was calm and focused. Unlike the other couples in the courtroom, my former husband and I sat together and chatted amiably.

So I had to wonder, what was up with my body? After finally achieving (and being so grateful for) a sense of equanimity, acceptance, and emotional freedom around this particular life story, why were my head and stomach still suffering?

“I haven’t thrown up in years,” I said to my son as I staggered out of the bathroom. Then I went straight to bed, sleeping through a dentist appointment that afternoon. “I didn’t even call them,” I told him later. “I just blew it off. I never do that.”

Ah. Were my own words a clue to what was going on? What else haven’t I done in years?

I haven’t had a friendly chat with my former husband since way back when we were, you know, friends. It was something I believed I’d never do. Yet there we were, talking about books and movies, just like old times.

Why was that so hard to stomach? Why should positive changes upset my equilibrium?

I don’t know. In my state, I could barely sort out the mundane. When my son told me it wasn’t a big deal to miss my dentist appointment, I disagreed. I gave him several reasons why it shouldn’t be done and joked that these were the confessions of a rule follower.

Yet here I was, breaking all kinds of “rules.”

As I’ve gotten older, I see that it’s not rules that interest me; it’s more a sense of order that I crave. But I’ve learned that order is not something I can control. There is a divine order that occurs in my life events, in the way my body heals, in the way emotional intelligence works—even in the creative process—that is mysterious and beyond my understanding.

I confess, I don’t know why sometimes hard things turn out to be easy, or easy things suddenly become hard, or why some are a strange amalgamation of both.

I didn’t make the rules. I just follow them. Except when I don’t.