It’s all okay, because love will find a way to be what love is.
I normally hate phrases like that: it’s all okay. It is what it is. What will be, will be.
They have always sounded, to me, like the voice of someone who is resigned and passive.
Someone who is giving up.
I don’t like to identify as someone who gives up. That is not a label that feels good to me. If there is one consistent thread in all the ways my personality has morphed and changed over the years, it’s got to be something like a refusal to give up on what I want, no matter how difficult or foolish or untiring I have to be to get it.
In a positive light, we might call that a good solid work ethic. Tenacity or responsibility. Maybe passion.
In a more realistic light, we’d probably just say stubbornness. Being obstinate or inflexible. Maybe idiocy.
But something’s changing. I don’t know what. Maybe I’m getting older and wiser, or maybe I’m just getting older and more tired. Maybe that turns out to be the same thing?
Maybe getting tired is a path to wisdom.
Maybe when you get tired enough—of your own efforts and failures, excuses and bullshit, efforts to prove yourself, all the striving and struggling—maybe something like room for wisdom opens up.
I’ve always seen two basic ways to approach the world: work hard and hard and harder to get what I want, or settle for not having it at all.
Maybe getting tired means I can stop thinking my own repetitive thoughts long enough to see another option or two or a hundred. Maybe there are alternatives that don’t require an extreme on either side.
And maybe taking responsibility doesn’t mean, necessarily, doing all the work, all by myself, in a kind of relentless, self-punishing way that means I have to hold the entire world (or my entire world) together through sheer force of will.
It’s a little tough to let go of this way of living, though. Because it’s worked for me. And sometimes it seems like it’s the only possible thing that could have worked, could have kept me going.
But seeming and being are different, aren’t they? Things can work out in a lot of different ways. If I’m so stubborn that I only see one possible path, then yeah: that’s the path I’ll take. But what if I could trade in a little stubbornness for, I don’t know, curiosity or receptivity or acceptance. Or trust.
That’s the one: trust.
But a different kind of trust. Not a trust in myself. Not a trust that’s about my ability to figure things out or be strong. A trust in something different, bigger, kinder.
A trust that desire is its own justification, and I don’t have to earn the right to be who I am or offer what I have. I don’t have to prove that I deserve what I want.
Maybe I can rest, and wait, and hold, and trust, and let what belongs flow in as it wants to, and let what doesn’t slip away.
Maybe I can just be.
Scares the shit out of me, honestly.
To quit trying to work it all out. To tell myself not to think through all the angles. To resist that urge to take it all on, figure it out, protect myself, protect everyone, bear the burden, take the lead, do the thing! DO ALL THE THINGS!
It’s weird to change your approach to the world after 30-odd years in one particular groove. Disorienting. Humbling. Vulnerable.
But… what I’m learning most lately is that feeling—the V word, you know, vulnerable—is a pointer. I mostly want to ignore it. Run the opposite direction. Put up the walls, close the door, shut it down, pull it in, hide. Get back to a place where I can feel capable and strong and confident.
Maybe this time I won’t do that.
“Setting the expectation that things will be easy results in disappointment and quitting at the smallest hiccup. If you prepare yourself for massive challenges and no such challenges crop up, it will be a pleasant surprise.”
[Source]
It’s been a challenging week, to put it mildly.
The financial reality is strain, with back-to-school enrollment fees and tuition for our four kids, and a long-awaited trip to see family, with flights, hotels, and trains booked. Yay! It’s going to be great if we can keep ourselves alive till the end of the month.
The work reality is almost-overload, as I’m at beginning point or wrap-up point for several client projects—which is when they require the most time and attention—plus taking on a few new writing gigs and working to document and systematize my own processes so I can outsource more of them. This will pay off, in multiple ways, but it’s a head-down-and-work-hard time until then… which has been made a bit more difficult by…
…The emotional reality which has been mostly terror. (You know I’m going to talk about my feelings. ALL OF THEM.) We found ourselves at the center of—we’ll call it community drama, for lack of a better term. I don’t really know what to call it. A mess. Painful, confusing, and full of lessons. I think we will be processing these lessons for a while. We have so much to learn about communicating, parenting, awareness, dealing with rumors, asking for help, and realizing that people will ultimately think what they want to think, and you have to be okay with that.
Ugh.
I wish I were mature enough to let all the bullshit float on by and be unaffected, but… Clearly, I am not. My emotional spectrum has been wiiiiiiiide this week, friends. From complete panic and terror to intense anger and hurt to a deep sense of loneliness and separation and fear of never being heard, never understood, to a “fuck-it-all” attitude that was, clearly, my attempt at self-protection.
I keep coming back to one thought:
We’re all doing the best we can.
All of us have the same goals: we want to be happy, we want the people we love to be happy, and we want our lives to mean something. We all have different ideas of happiness, and we all have different measures of meaning. That’s okay. All our differences create beautiful variations in life.
The tricky part is getting past those surface differences and recognizing our similarities. And looking at intention is important. It’s easy to feel attacked when someone spreads nasty rumors about you, but what’s the intention? How can I know that? How can I make that assumption? How can I judge someone’s motives, someone else’s understanding and choice, from the outside?
Obviously I can assume and I can judge, but I have no way of knowing what’s real and what isn’t until I talk to someone directly. Even then, communication can be difficult. If I go into a conversation with assumptions and predetermined judgements, can I really listen? Will I really be able to separate the facts from the feelings?
All I know is that community is worth the effort.
Conflict, misunderstandings, assumptions, hurts, offenses: these things come and go. Sometimes they come in mighty waves and knock us over. Sometimes they drip-drip-drip, a slow leak, and we overlook them until great damage has been done.
The doorways to connection look different than I expect them to. Every conflict is an opportunity. Every misunderstanding can lead to clarity, to deeper honesty and greater openness. That’s the path I want to walk. Here’s hoping I can figure out how.
Links!
Not much on the link list this week…
Is freelancing worth it? Freelancing, especially when you’re starting out, is not easy. It doesn’t have to be as difficult as I made it on myself (pro tip: don’t have four kids in five years and try to build a freelancing business at the same time unless you have serious masochistic tendencies which, apparently, I have). But it does require dedication, focus, hard work, and time. It’s easy to become disillusioned if you have expectations of ease.
Enjoy your Sunday evening!
Watch the sunset, read a book, have a drink, plan your week, take some deep breaths, or… something completely different. It’s your life, and what you fill it with is entirely up to you. Make it good.