I write a post in my head on the walk to the train station in the morning. It’s good, it flows and has a clear beginning, middle, and end. It draws meaningful conclusions, parts of which are even a little bit profound. I mentally pat myself on the back for my little glimmer of brilliance, and remember that there is a piece of me, often times buried though it is, that knows how to be a writer.
I sit down on the platform to wait for the train, pull out my laptop, open Word, place hands to keys, take a deep breath, and.........*waiting*.........nothing.
Because the pressure of having the mental become in some way tangible, having it become words on a page that will go out into the world that other people can read makes me hesitate just enough to be afraid. The pressure of having to own up, to take responsibility for what I put out there, to look forward into the reality I exist in in this moment and not back into my own mind is almost enough to make me cave. And I wonder if that’s just what it will do, if it will make my resolve buckle, create little cracks and fissures that left unplastered have the potential to break me for a while, short though it may be.
Over the last week or so I’ve told two different people on two different sides of the world in two very different situations that they had to find in themselves the courage to touch the centre of their own pain, to let it wash over them, to feel it, completely, perhaps for the first time. The part I didn’t tell them is that in the moments after the hurt and the anger, the grief and the despair, the anguish so real you feel it in your guts, in the moments after those things you need to, you must, know, understand, and accept that you caused that pain yourself. No one else was responsible.
I knew that before, knew it in my head, but I didn’t understand it to the core of who I was. I knew that reacting instead of acting serves no purpose, I knew that emotions might not be a choice but feelings are, I knew that just as sure as it’s possible to suspend disbelief, so you can suspend belief. I knew that there is very little in this world, perhaps nothing, that is inherent. But I still reacted, didn’t choose, believed, too many times over the years when what I needed to do was act, make a choice, see what was. You create your own reality and no one else is responsible but you. Knowing that mentally and knowing it viscerally are not the same thing, and even though I even knew that, I’ve been too arrogant, too egotistical, too caught up in playing games of ‘lets see who breaks first’, to see it in myself. It took me breaking first, really breaking first for the first time, for that to happen. As a rule people see, learn, and make changes only when they’ve smacked the bottom of their own lies instead of bouncing off. Bend themselves til they break and then act like they didn’t know how it happened. The smart ones of us, the truly in the know ones, they don’t do that. They see the curves in the road before they’re on top of them and make adjustments as they go. Over the last few years I’ve wanted so much to be able to do that that I convinced myself that I already was. I lied to myself. I deluded myself. I cheated myself. I hurt myself. I hurt other people. I was wrong more than I was right.
It’s the first of September. In eight days it will be one year since I landed in England the first time, and a big year it’s been. I’ve moved across the world three times. I’ve had four jobs on two continents, in two countries, in four cities. I’ve lived with someone else, I’ve lived alone, I’ve lived with family, I’ve lived with friends, I’ve lived with strangers. I’ve had relationships, I’ve had flings, I’ve had no one but myself. I said I’d give someone forever when I had no right to and I realized that and I walked away. I’ve made a slew of new friends. I’ve really reconnected with old ones. I’ve written more for myself than ever before. I’ve gone through all of my possessions four times and left a lot of things behind. In twelve months I haven’t stopped moving, both literally and figuratively.
When I got back here just over six weeks ago I did it with the intention of learning from all of that moving, learning from all of that mental and physical housecleaning, spending some much needed and deserved and required time alone, cutting myself off, just a tiny bit. Of course I still wanted to talk to family and friends and see people and have fun, but I also wanted to mentally take a step back. When I got back here just over six weeks ago I did it with the intention of allowing myself to grow, and I’ve done that, I’ve grown. I’ve gotten to where I wanted to be, not that I’m done yet because we never really are, but I’ve gotten to a point where I’m becoming satisfied with it. Gotten to a point where I can see my challenges and see how to start overcoming them; it’s a good point to be at. What I didn’t do, though, is do it the way I wanted to do it. Doing it this way has probably made me do it faster, as trials by fire often do, but it hasn’t necessarily been better.
I’ve said before that last winter I lost myself, and it’s true. Last winter I was drowning, frantic, clawing at water and not understanding why that was making me sink. Last spring I was self-destructive, and flippant, and I didn’t care. Last summer I was content, happy, working toward a goal. In the last month I forgot about that; I started looking at something and someone outside myself as the source of my happiness and the pressure that created on everyone involved was scary at best and crushing at worst. It was a rookie mistake and a fatal error at that. But I learn, as you do, and I won’t be doing that one again. Someone slap me if I even so much as appear to be doing that again.
September first; a new month, almost a new season, the real beginning of “a new nine year epicycle" ;). Let go of what wants to go, it said, and hold onto what wants to stay. That’s not just to be interpreted literally, it applies to the emotional baggage that wants to be let go too.
Hold onto your blessings. Count them one by one.
