A collection of poetry, Shawn thinks, should make people feel things they once felt but had forgotten the words for. That's why he finds himself digging through a decade of poems, random musings, elaborate thoughts, and desperate confessions. Finding the words for feelings he'd forgotten. He discovers he's telling the story of where he's been and where he wants to go next.
He has poems from the high points getting Angela back, to losing her and then himself. He finds his old journal filled with poems he'd write when he was drunk. He pulled a few from right before his suicide attempt and from right after. He keeps one when he was staying with Jon in California and then a few that he wrote as he struggled with sobriety the first time. Looking at them now, he could see how his relapse was coming. The way he thought sobriety would work for him, wasn't as healthy as he thought.
So, he also includes multiple poems from when he relapsed. Poems about the drugs he tried, the women he slept with, the people he partied with. The juxtaposition with a short essay he'd written about his job on the road. How it was both the best and the worst thing for him.
Getting through these older journals is a little difficult. He spends at least two weeks with them and he's on the phone with his therapist several times. It's not that they trigger him to relapse, it's just painful to see it all laid out again. To sit with the pain he'd worked through and see it again. The story of his life, told by him, in the most intimate way possible. These writings are from his lowest points and it's hard to look so closely at them. Analyzing their poetic quality for contribution to a book that will explain himself to whoever chooses to read it.
He reaches his more recent journals. The ones from the past six years. Honestly, he sees his poetry get better. He can tell the difference in his writing style and all he can really do is laugh at himself. He remembers being drunk and depressed and feeling like a true artist because that's how all his old favorites were when they were writing. But now, he has evidence. He has written proof that his thoughts come together more beautifully and coherently when he actually allows himself to think them. When he isn't scared to allow the feelings to come out, he tells a better story.
After three weeks, he's not quite done, but he does call his old book publisher to let him know what he's planning. Thankfully, they're on board to see what he comes up with.
Shawn hadn't told his family what he was up to though. They all knew he was up in his cabin, but he didn't really tell them why. He wasn't sure what was going to come of this project, and he needed to isolate himself to really figure it all out. He let them assume he was just on another work assignment upstate.
The last week of August however, Shawn's phone lights up with a call from Cory.
"Hey, you home?" Cory asked as soon as Shawn answered.
"Yeah. Everything okay?"
"Yeah, the girls are coming to see you," Cory responded.
"Oh, okay. I'll be here." Shawn was about to ask what was going on, but Cory had already hung up.
Shawn looked around his cabin and saw what a mess it had become. The project had started in his office, but now there were bits and pieces of his thought process in each room. Books and loose papers and forgotten mugs of tea any number of days old.
He put down the book he'd been reading and started tidying up. He figured as long as the living room was cleaned up, his place would look decent enough to accommodate the girls. He moved all his journals and papers into the office and started cleaning the kitchen. He showered and cleaned himself up, not wanting to look like the disheveled mountain man he had become in the past few weeks.
As he got things ready, he started feeling excited that the girls were coming. He missed them and he realized that as much as he needed it for the project, had spent too much time alone lately. He was too far in his own past and his own head. A break into the girls' world would be good.
He was making tea when they finally arrived.
Shawn looked at Riley and Maya as they sat on his couch. He was actually weirdly proud of them, running away to solve a problem. They reminded him of a less traumatized version of himself. As much as he recognized how he used running to solve his problems too many times, he couldn't deny that sometimes getting out of where you are, helps you find your way back to where you need to be.
He was surprised that it was Riley's idea to come visit. He offers them butter cookies and poured them tea, feeling a little flattered that they would come all the way up to him for help solving whatever problem they were having.
"What's become of you?" Riley asked. She realized her cool Uncle Shawn now lacked a certain edge he used to have.
"I'm evolving. It's, uh- it's actually been quite a journey." He chuckled a bit. He just did a three-week intensive course into his own journey and he couldn't really explain it to them. "I like who I am now."
He looked out the window to tell the girls about the mountains and the trees. He loved how beautiful and isolated his cabin was but had to admit it allowed him to isolate too much sometimes. Perhaps this is what they called cabin fever.
"Oh, and there's that squirrel that I talk to!" He half joked. He had found himself appreciating when that particular squirrel came around each day. He'd taken to leaving nuts out for him.
"Uncle Shawn, my best friend is broken, and you did it." Riley said, breaking him away from his thoughts.
"Me?" Shawn asked cautiously. He didn't like the idea of Maya being broken, especially if it was his fault. The last serious talk they all had, was about the way Shawn had been broken. He could feel anxiety building up if she was broken like him. He had no idea what the girls were really doing here and he wished they would get to the point.
"I need it to be you because if it isn't you, then it's me, and I don't want it to be me, so it needs to be you," Riley half rambled.
"Okay, why are you broken?" Shawn asked Maya, almost afraid of the answer.
"Remember how I was tough and edgy?" Maya said, none of her usual edge in her voice.
"Yeah," Shawn answered.
"Remember how I was just like you?" Maya continued.
"Yeah! I was tough and edgy!" Shawn took a sip of his tea. He thought back to when he was a kid, even with all the pain and self-hatred, he had liked being that punk bad boy that everyone in school thought was rough around the edges.
"So, why do you have tea and Swedish butter cookies?" Maya asked, not following up about herself.
"I don't know what you people like!" He put his tea down. Not wanting to talk about himself. The girls were here for a reason and he wanted to know what was happening.
"Look, how are you my fault?" He asked, deciding to make more tea. The girls hadn't even touched their mugs, but he needed to be doing something.
"There can't be two Rileys, just like there can't be two Mayas. For the world to work there needs to be one Riley and one Maya." Riley tried to explain.
Shawn paused for a moment.
"I know that language. That's Topanganese." He pulls himself out of a memory of Topanga giving him wisdom in that same vein decades ago and turns around from the kitchen.
"She's right," Riley said.
"Is she?" He asks. "What happens when you meet a good influence and they start to change you for the better?"
"That's when your art teacher says you're incomplete." Maya tells him.
"Yeah, tell me about it. I know because I had a good influence." Shawn sat down on the arm of the couch and sighed.
"You're incomplete?" Riley asked, a little worried what that would mean for Shawn.
"Look, you know, when your dad and I first met, all he wanted was to be like me?" Shawn remembers how Cory kept worrying that he was a geek and he wanted to be cool.
"It was ridiculous that he wanted to be like me. Not even I wanted to be like me. I mean, the guy had a great family. He had parents who were there."
He got off the couch, needed to pace a little bit. He could feel himself getting caught up in the memories of feeling inferior to the perfect Matthews family, even though he was part of that family now, those childhood feelings never seem to disappear completely.
"And then Cory met Topanga… Do you know what it's like to go to high school with Romeo and Juliet?"
He knew no one could really know what that was like. He let out a huff and continued. "And so, I loved Angela, and I thought that would be my story. But it didn't work. I mean, how could it not work?"
He realized he was starting to ramble a bit. He had been cooped up alone for a little too long. The deep dive into his past psyche wasn't really helping him stay grounded right now.
"They worked. Then they had you," he gestured back to Riley, "and I couldn't catch up. So, I don't have any of that. I had to go and try to figure myself out, which nearly destroyed me. I knew I could never have what they had. Now, I've got trees… and that squirrel I talk to."
He looked outside at the squirrel he'd lovingly named Stevie and sighed.
"Cory Matthews messed up my life." The slow realization hit him hard. He loved Cory, the guy saved his life so many times and had been there forever, but he'd also been a source of a lot of struggles. Having Cory's life as comparison during his whole childhood, amped up the feelings of inferiority Shawn felt he was born with. Shawn didn't really know what to do with all of this.
"Uh-oh." Riley wasn't sure where this was headed but she didn't like it. She really had believed her dad when he promised Shawn would be okay. But to watch him now, Riley was starting to feel like maybe they still didn't fully understand how Shawn worked.
Shawn took a deep breath. He realized he was losing himself right in front of the girls when he had promised them he'd be okay.
He looked at Maya. "But I'm not gonna let that happen to you because of some second-generation Cory Matthews."
"You're gonna protect me from her?" Maya asked, getting off the couch to face Shawn.
"Didn't I say I'd always be there for you?" Shawn had only known Maya for the past year and a half, but he knew with all his heart he was committed to her and he had to tell her why.
"I didn't meet you till I was 34, but… you're the reason, Maya, that I believe I could be a father someday. For most of my life I never even dreamed that I would have kids. Somewhere in myself I knew I would never be able to be a good father. It doesn't exactly run in my blood."
He looked at her with so much love and was glad that he could admit this to her. "And that's not because of Cory Matthews, that's my own… what would you call that?"
"That's your own unique voice saying you care about me." Maya realized what he was saying. "You should listen to it more often."
"Maybe I should… So, you came to see me because you've disappeared a little?"
Maya nodded.
"Then you've come to the right place!" Shawn was excited now. He could see how he could actively help again, and he wasn't going to let Maya down. He was glad to shove down his own feelings about himself for a little bit while he helped her.
"First, we'll pinpoint the exact moment you stopped being Maya. Then you'll see, it had nothing to do with me."
The girls picked up the bags they'd brought with them and Shawn just stared as all the clothes he'd bought Maya a couple years ago came tumbling out.
"Oh yeah… All those clothes I bought you… look at that." He chuckled, realizing he may be partially to blame for whatever Maya was going through now. "Let's figure out what to do next."
They didn't say anything as Shawn quickly turned away from the girls and started cleaning up the tea. He knew they were going to have a lot to talk about and he needed a minute to think things through.
The girls started looking around the cabin living room, it had changed a bit since they had been there last. It looked more lived in. There were more photos on the wall than before, ones of family and friends, not just nature and interesting places. Maya stared at the ones that had her and her mother in them. The picture of Maya blowing out her birthday candles, the picture of Katy and Shawn on their first date.
Shawn saw Maya looking at the photos and smiled. Those photos were more special to him than any of the other ones. "I know what you were wishing for on your birthday Maya. I've wished for the same thing my entire life."
He honestly was still wishing for it in the back of his head every day. To feel whole as part of a family is something that he'd always wish for even when he was happy on his own. Even when surrounded by the Matthews or staying up late chatting with Jon, there was always a piece of him that wanted a family he built for himself, not one that just took him in.
"I care about your mother, I hope that's okay." He desperately hoped it was.
Maya smiled. "It's okay."
"And, I like you, too." Shawn admitted. "I'm… I'm very… extremely fond of you."
Maya hugged him as if she'd never let go. She was letting hope guide her now and it was a little overwhelming.
"Say it!" Riley said, always needing to chime in and move things forward.
"I don't know what comes after that. I'm damaged!" Shawn felt good with how much emotion he was handling today but Riley was almost more relentlessly chipper than Cory was at times.
"I'm very extremely fond of you too." Maya told him.
Riley let them hug for a little longer and then knew what needed to be done. She picked up Maya's clothes and they decided to go sell them all to a vintage store. They wanted to get Maya back and she needed to find her own style again.
"Maya!" Riley demanded. "Say it!"
"I want to sell all my clothes please!" Maya almost shouted.
Shawn took the girls out shopping again and this time it wasn't at some expensive fashion store. He let Maya wander around the vintage thrift stores and find the things that made her happy. He texted Cory while he waited for the girls in the fitting rooms. He hadn't felt it in a while, but the pulsing underneath his skin told him he was feeling anxious about something. Something that years ago would have made him open his own skin, now needed to come out some other way. He knew he would be okay. He would handle this. But he needed Cory to come up to the cabin. He couldn't handle his own identity crisis and Maya's at the same time.
After a few hours, they ended up back in his cabin, but Maya was still unsure of herself. It hurt his heart in a way that made him absolutely sure of how much he cared for her. It was hard to see someone he loved, someone who used to be so sure of herself, struggling.
"Just because I'm dressing like her, doesn't mean I know how to be her anymore," Maya admitted.
"That's nuts. You are her." Riley tried to reassure her friend.
Shawn looked at himself in the mirror and could feel sadness staring back at him. "No, Riley. I get it. Sometimes I look in that mirror and I don't even know what's looking back at me anymore either." He looked at his cardigan and kakis and couldn't even remember the last time he wore a leather jacket or a band tee.
"Well then we need to figure out the exact moment when you stopped being you." Riley told him, using his own idea for Maya against him.
He sighed. There were a lot of moments in his life that changed him and there were a lot of versions of himself. He didn't know when he stopped being himself because he didn't know if he had a good version of who he should be. All the poetry and journals he'd just spent the month reading had left him feeling vulnerable but he knew that where he was now in life was better because he wasn't self-destructive. He couldn't possibly pinpoint all the parts of himself that he lost along the way.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door as Cory walked in.
"Why do I have to be here?" Cory asked. "Do you know what kind of a shlep this is?"
He had driven for hours in the dark just because Shawn had texted that he needed him. "Is this even a place? My GPS said 'end of the world' 40 miles ago!"
Riley looked confused. "Then, why ya here, pops?"
"Shawn called me. I come." Cory told her. He would never not come when Shawn needed him. He looked at Riley and Maya. "That's right. It's like your ring power, times a billion."
"So, what do we got here, Shawnie?" Cory finally asked, walking towards Shawn.
"You wanna know what we got?" Shawn asked. When he had told Cory to come, he wasn't exactly sure what he would say when Cory actually got here. He just had the feeling that he needed to see him and get something off his chest.
"Well, I came all this way." Cory shrugged.
"And thank you for that. And now, there's this." Shawn surprised himself a bit as he abruptly jumped Cory and tackled him to the ground. After a minute of childish wrestling, Cory got out of Shawn's attack.
"You destroyed me." Shawn told him as they stood up.
"What? That's not true. That's crazy." Cory told him.
"No. No, that's not crazy. This is crazy." He shoved Cory over the couch in front of them and honestly, he felt a little bit better inside.
"I'm wearing a cable knit sweater! I'm wearing slacks! You turned me into you! I came back after 11 years and in less than two, I'm you!"
"You ain't me." Cory looked him over as he stood back up. "I would never wear that."
Shawn looked around his cabin and a new realization came over him. "Oh shit, I'm Feeny."
Cory looked at Shawn. "No, I'm Feeny. You're Feeny's father! Captain Feeny."
Shawn hated this. He had lost himself so completely he had become a weird version of his best friend, and an old man he never thought he'd end up like. He realized when he lost himself and it was when he had decided to come home. When he had decided to tackle the last bits of his trauma and let himself heal for the sake of family.
"You destroyed me." Shawn tackled Cory to the ground again.
They fought for a little while until they finally noticed the girls had gotten to talking. They settled on the floor and Shawn took a deep breath. For whatever reason, his spat with Cory had helped Maya come to her own realizations about wanting what Riley had as she had slowly turned herself into Riley.
"You know, I spent most of my life chasing what Cory and Topanga had. Knowing you Cor, it changed me for the better. But then… I don't know, maybe I just let myself change too much. In wanting so hard to be better and to be ready for something different, I just grew out of myself and into you."
"How do you change back?" Maya asked.
"By knowing I don't want what Cory and Topanga have anymore. I want what I'm supposed to have." Shawn got up off the ground.
"How you gonna get it?" Riley asked.
"I'd like to sell all my clothes please!" He mimicked Maya's earlier statement, knowing it might just help.
He walked into the bedroom to change out of his sweater. He took his time pulling his old clothes out of the back of his closet. He couldn't really even remember when the sweaters and slacks had made their way in and his other clothes had made their way to the back. It hadn't been a conscious transition, which was probably why it hadn't bothered him until tonight when everything came up with Maya.
Finally, he found his old leather jacket and a hunter green, long sleeve shirt. It was comfy, casual, and made him feel a little like himself. But as he stepped out and looked in the mirror with Maya, he knew she was right. These were just clothes. It couldn't bring him back to who he was. He had spent so much time on the road finding himself. He had written endless amounts of words trying to sort through who he was, but just as quickly as he found himself, he lost himself again in someone else.
"Cor? What made me, me?" He asked, with slight desperation in his voice. He didn't want the broken and desperate boy he used to be. He wanted the cool and confident person he had tried to find while he was away, when he had gotten his book published, when he had felt stable and ready for change, when he decided to get sober, and when he knew he was strong for surviving his life.
"You know what the best thing is about best friends?" Cory asks rhetorically. "You can always depend on them to know how you are... Reckless spontaneity."
"What?" Shawn looks at him, slightly confused.
"You always lived in the moment, Shawn. You never cared about what happened or what people thought."
Cory knew that a lot of times that was a detriment to Shawn taking care of himself, but it was part of who Shawn was, and a lot of times, it was a great thing.
"I mean, you blew up a mailbox, you turned Feeny's house into a bed and breakfast, and you ran away to find yourself like 76 times. This ain't new. You wanna find yourself? Remember your reckless spontaneity. That's the best part of you, when you use it for good, and it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me." Cory put his hand on Shawn's shoulder, hoping to stabilize his best friend.
"Besides mom," Riley reminded her dad.
"I know my own life." Cory replied. He wondered if Riley would one day understand completely how much his best friend would always mean more to him than anything else. She had Maya, so she might figure it out someday.
Shawn was thankful that he could hold back the tears that were starting to water his eyes. "Thank you… you've always been there for me, even when it wasn't good for you."
"I always will be." Cory reminded him.
Shawn smiled and needed to get out of this sentimental moment before he actually started crying. "Should we do it once for the girls?" He asked, hoping Cory would get the hint.
Cory knew exactly what they needed to do. They did their elaborate handshake and it seemed to liven Shawn up again.
"Yeah! All right. I remember Shawn Hunter." Shawn smiled, ready to conquer the Maya situation.
"Well, does that change the way you feel about me?" Maya asked nervously.
Shawn looked at her and realized what his reckless spontaneity was calling him to do. "Yeah. Actually, it does Maya. Why don't you find yourself so we can talk about it?"
Maya looked at Riley and knew she needed to find herself too. She didn't know what Shawn meant. She needed to know how he felt about her. What if he changed his mind now and didn't want to be there for her? If he was going to be the old Shawn again, what did that really mean? From what he had told them, the old Shawn wasn't very safe or reliable. What if getting the old Shawn back wasn't a good idea after all?
Luckily, Riley had a plan and needed the keys to the school to do it. After a little back and forth with her dad about it, he agreed and they drove to the school. No one knew what Riley's plan was but they knew to trust her on this.
It was getting late but the reckless, spontaneous Shawn Hunter was back now and there was no stopping the new thought that dominated his mind. As soon as the thought had popped in his head, he couldn't think about anything else. Once Cory and Shawn dropped the girls off at the school, Shawn told Cory they had another stop to make.
"You know what I'm thinking, right?" Shawn looked at Cory as he parked in front of the nearest jewelers that was still open.
"Yeah Shawn. I know what you gotta do. I think it's one of the best decisions you've ever made." Cory smiled. It was phenomenal how far Shawn had come and Cory was almost more giddy than when he'd prepared himself to propose to Topanga.
It took a while to find the perfect ring, but once Shawn saw it, he knew in his gut there was no turning back. He took a moment to look at this little life changing rock.
He briefly remembered when he was going to propose to Angela. The feelings he had then were nothing compared to the ones he had now. He was desperate before. Scared of losing Angela, franticly needing to hold onto her and turn their relationship into something as epic as Cory and Topanga.
He looked at the ring now and only felt calm. Everything felt right in a way that he didn't know things could.
Cory put his arm around Shawn and looked at the ring with him. "You sure you're ready for this?"
Shawn smiled and put the ring box in his pocket. "Yeah… actually, I am."
They drove back and Shawn could barely keep his energy contained. The closer they got to Cory's apartment, the more his nerves started creeping in. He knew he was ready, but he still wasn't sure she would say yes. The idea that she would say no started to cross his mind and he just had to keep shoving that thought away.
As soon as Cory parked, Shawn was a man on a mission. He walked quickly into the Matthews' apartment and his eyes lit up as soon as he saw Katy there, as if nothing, and nobody else was in the room.
"I have been reminded that you can't help but be influenced by the people or the events of your life." Shawn started talking immediately.
"And this can cause you to… lose a part of yourself sometimes, or… forget who you are for a while… or what you need… to be what you've always wanted to be." Shawn looked at Katy and reached out to hold her hands.
"I've been unfair to you. I keep going away and you don't really know me. You don't even know that I'm a creature of… reckless spontaneity." He tried to remember exactly what Cory had called him.
"Shawn what are you saying?" Katy asked.
"I love your daughter… and I'm in love with you. I want us to take care of each other forever. Do you want to get married?"
He pulled a ring out of his pocket and got down on one knee. He knew that this was the most vulnerable thing he'd ever done for himself, but it was worth it if it could bring him everything he'd ever wanted. He could feel his heart pounding all over his body as he waited for Katy's reply. It seemed to be the longest moment of his life.
When she finally said yes, he had never felt such overwhelming joy. It beat out the moment his book was published, when Angela came back for him, even the day Riley was born. For everything that his life had been, it had all led him to this moment of pure hope and joy and love.