The Meaning of Three: Under the Mask

There are times when a single choice results in fairly unimportant changes in our lives, but other choices can lead to significant life-changes that we could never have imagined before we made the decisions. And there are other times when we consider making a choice that we know, without a doubt, that once we make it, our lives will never be the same. Though there were many of those small decisions in my life, there was one monumental choice that had been on my mind for a number of years that I knew would change my life forever. When it came down to actually making the choice, for a few profoundly painful minutes, I struggled. September 25, 1986, late in the evening following my grandmother’s funeral, I was driving north on Interstate-5 after leaving my mother’s house to return home. My husband had not attended the memorial service honoring the life of a woman I had loved so very much, claiming that he couldn’t get away from work, something I could not accept since he was the owner of our business. His most common response to most of my requests for support was, “I can’t get away, somebody’s got to work around here,” insinuating that anything I did that was not related to our business was unacceptable, including taking time out to go to a funeral. I felt deeply betrayed because he wouldn’t reach out to me at I time I really needed him to be my knight, if not my Lone Ranger, and he could be neither. While I was driving and wiping away unwanted tears, the night seemed darker than usual, and there was too much traffic for that time of the evening. I believed the man who was supposed to be my partner had failed me so greatly, and this last neglectful act felt like the capstone of a whole series of his failures at being the husband I needed. I knew I had a choice to make, and the moment I’d have to make it was quickly approaching. I could continue to drive the 17 miles north and take the 175th street exit that would take me to our house, or I could take the Interstate 90 exit that would take me East over Lake Washington and into Bellevue where another man, also named Jake, was having a birthday party. There was a profound war going on inside. The part of me, who had always followed the rules and always tried to do what was right, was committed to the northbound road, but another part of me, who had stopped trying to see his light under all of the painful patterns behind my husband’s mask, was equally committed to taking the earlier exit and driving eastward. As the lighted green freeway sign indicating the eastbound exit grew larger, I turned my head to the left to avoid looking in the direction of the sign, while that other part of me took hold of the steering wheel and turned the car onto I-90. The split second decision was called in favor of the one who wanted to end any more attempts to find the goodness in my husband and begin a new life. I drove to Bellevue, and after sitting in my car for some time in front of his house to see if I was really committed to the terrifying choice, I slowly walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. The other man named Jake opened the door and the surprise on his face turned into a joyful welcome. He opened to embrace me as I melted into the arms of a man whose eyes sparkled with love and light. Though this other man was not the person for whom my child-self had been searching—in time his own shadows from behind his mask emerged, as did mine—he was the catalyst for my literally making a decision between two roads, one that would return me to my husband and the life I had known for two decades, and the other that would take me away from my husband into another life that was totally unknown. Much of what I wrote in The Mask and some of what I wrote in Behind the Mask told the stories of what happened before that profoundly significant September night, as well as what followed that monumental decision to turn eastward. Though I never married the second Jake who asked me to be his wife on Cannon Beach, Oregon while ocean waves crashed behind me against Haystack Rock, I did leave my husband and placed nearly all my attention on healing my internal wounding through psychological and body therapy. My total focus was to become free, not just from the outer chains, but from the inner chains, as well, that bound me and kept me from knowing my true self and prevented me from doing what I wanted to do with my life. Though I did drive back to my home later that night, I had set the energy in motion to eventually leave my husband to create a new life for myself, on my own. During the years of inner healing that followed, I began extensive travel that eventually took me all over the US and into other countries to study more ancient and spiritual healing practices, something I wouldn’t have done had I continued the drive north on that September night.