The dog you really got to dread

Is the one that howls inside your head

It’s him whose howling drives men mad

And a mind to its undoing…

-Hermes, “Wait for Me (Reprise)”, Hadestown

The dog in my head—what I like to call the Hydra monster—has been howling at full volume for about two months straight. And Hadestown’s Hermes really wasn’t kidding when he said that this dog can drive you to your undoing. Especially when you let that dog’s howling dictate the road—mental or otherwise—that you take.

A couple months ago, I was offered the opportunity to move to the East Coast where my best friend lives. I had an okay job lined up, a place to stay (albeit not one I was super excited about), and most importantly, an opportunity to get out of the rut I’ve felt stuck in. I just needed a big change, I told myself. For as long as I can remember, there have been people around me who say they can’t wait until I get out of Nebraska, that I’ll flourish somewhere else, that Nebraska will keep me limited. And even though I often declare how much I love the Midwest, deep down I believed those people. I believed that I could never push boundaries and make big moves unless I was somewhere else physically.

Which is why, even though I had reservations, even though I wanted to discuss options with a third party instead of making my decision alone, I said yes to my best friend. And I kept saying yes, even as the situation changed. Even if, as time went on, I didn’t mean it anymore.

Part of the reason I doubled down is because my independent decision-making tore a huge hole in the fabric of my sibling relationship. My sister, who I usually trust with the things I don’t trust others with, became the person I projected my internal doubts onto. I was afraid she would convince me to stay. At least, that’s what I said out loud. Truthfully, the howling in my head knew I might convince myself to stay if I talked through it.

For a while, I felt like the decision to move had ruined my life. I indulged in some (old and new) bad habits over the course of a couple weeks because I thought I was losing someone I care about more than myself. I thought, like people insinuated, that I was choosing one best friend over another best friend. And I was doing it on a whim. On near-sighted (but not quite blind) trust in someone else. “I’ve done it twice,” that friend said over and over. Which I took to mean, “You can do it, too.”

My sister and I had a big messy to-do about trust (or lack thereof) that eventually ended in apologies and productive conversations that made our relationship as friends stronger, yada yada, all those cliches are true.

In the end, though, this situation gave the howling dog a megaphone. “Who are you? Where do you think you’re goin’?” the Fates whispered into my thoughts.

In between making this big life decision and actually following through on it, my family and I traveled to NYC for the US Open. (Side note: Go, Coco!)

The night before this trip, my best friend revealed another twist in the road to the East Coast. It was a twist that meant the entire path I was on was about to change immediately, and no map could predict the outcome.

Even though I hate to admit it, relief flooded through me. I was relieved that I didn’t have to go through all of the stress of moving halfway across the country. I could stay in place physically, but because I’d had the courage to say yes to a big change already, I could be sure of my ability to make other changes in life. I could start moving forward at a slower pace, like I usually prefer to do.

I was upset, but not as upset as I thought I’d be. So I went to New York, unsure of what was waiting for me when I got back home, but kind of hoping for one outcome over the other.

While there, we saw a couple of Broadway shows, one of which was Hadestown, a jazzy retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice a la Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (another great musical adaptation, by the way). I’d never seen Hadestown before, and in fact didn’t love the soundtrack that much. But while watching and reflecting on it, I was startled by how much it resonated with me.

It’s a story about love, doubt, trust, and hope. Loving someone with all your heart. Trusting that love to get you through. Breaking that trust and sewing the seeds of doubt. Telling the same story again in hopes that the ending will change.

The stories we tell ourselves are equally as important as the reality we find ourselves in. Orpheus believes stories are the most important, and Eurydice sits firmly on the side of reality mattering most. For a while, they are able to reconcile these viewpoints. Until the story and the reality inevitably drift apart. Or, more accurately, are hurled apart by the winds of a “great storm.”

When my best friend told me about the changing circumstances, that was the “great storm” of my situation. There’s no blame to be had for this. It was just a force of Fate. Still, that moment was the fork in the road at which reality and story diverged.

Doubt comes in and meets a stranger / I used to see the way the world could be

Walking on the road below / But now the way it is is all I see

–The Fates and Orpheus, “Doubt Comes In”, Hadestown

I’ve never been a very trusting person. I keep a lot to myself and I open up slowly. I go back and forth on almost every decision I make, no matter how permanent it is. No matter how much it affects me and/or the people around me. I don’t even trust myself. I don’t think I’ve ever trusted anyone fully, because I don’t believe in unconditional trust. There will always be conditions. That’s just what it means to exist in the world, at least for me.

An unhealthy dose of misgendering and gaslighting in NYC just reinforced that belief.

My friend called again after the trip, explained that things maybe weren’t as iffy as they’d originally thought. At first I thought, hey, I already went through all this emotional turmoil so I might as well go through with it. Then I began to more fully doubt myself and my best friend, and by that point, it was already over. The floor beneath me no longer held me up and I fell and fell and fell some more. The trust was no longer there.

So when my friend called again to check in on me, when I was so close to just doing the hard thing anyway, I backed out. Despite all of the effort and emotion that was put into the whole journey, I turned around, leaving the person I claimed to trust, along with the people behind that person, to deal with the consequences. I let them down, and that in turn bled into other people’s lives. Now I have to live with my decision and pick up the pieces of a potential life I had the biggest hand in shattering.

‘Cause here’s the thing

To know how it ends

And still begin to sing it again

As if it might turn out this time

I learned that from a friend of mine

-Hermes, “Road to Hell (Reprise)”, Hadestown

Though I’ve never been trusting, I’ve always been hopeful. Because here’s the thing: I’m not a myth. I’m not a story. My life continues on after this whole thing blows over, and my humanity goes deeper than any story can capture. You can’t change the end to a story that’s already been told, no matter how hard you try or hope, but each time the story is told, you can learn something new from it. And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to change because of what I’ve already done. Bad experiences don’t have to be bad stories.  

In Hadestown, Orpheus gives into his doubt and, at the end, appears to have lost hope. However, the others involved in the narrative have been touched by his story and life. People, gods, the world—he gave all of them hope just by having and sharing his own hope for the world. He changed how they see the world even if his own story didn’t actually work out.

Some past Ryn had enough self-trust to decide to move all the way across the country without anyone else’s input. He fed the howling mental dog a canine-friendly CBD pill to quiet it down and listened to some other voice inside his head. Which means that some future Ryn can do this again with the hope of things turning out differently.

Maybe next time, I’ll get just as close, and instead of turning around, I’ll trust myself and those around me enough to take that last step forward. For now, though, please excuse me while I listen to the Hadestown soundtrack on a loop.

*We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled blog posts and stories after this. 🙂

-Ryn PB