I’m not one of those people who just wakes up and rolls out of bed to start another day. Most of the time I either wake up panicky or I wake up excited for the day - 100% of the time I wake up with a stomach ache (my body’s go to reaction of being worked up in one way or another). I’m not good at just plain old waking up. Today I woke up sad.
Last night I set Buen Maestra up with ‘The Teacher’ that I met on match.com back in February. Though I think he is a bonafide nice guy, I do not think we are a match. He’s probably closer than most but it isn’t there. Buen Maestra deserves a really wonderful guy so I set them up based on their similar dispositions (gentle, unassuming, optimistic). The night went ok but I was left feeling like I don’t belong, yet again.
The feeling is isolation is so common and frequent that I’m embarrassed to write about it too much at the risk of sounding whiny or pathetic. Half of the time I’m writing this blog out of pure, honest emotion and experience but the other half I wonder if I’m writing it the way that I want to experience things, not admitting to the pain that is just under the surface. Or maybe I secretly know that the pain just under the surface is there for everyone so it doesn’t need to be said outloud. Either way, I digress and will continue with my sad morning story:
Grace went with her father for the day/night to his hometown and I opened up the trusting lounge chair and soaked in the sun. I am someone who needs a lot of light. I bask in it, soak it in, I literally can not get enough of it. In fact, I feel that I lived in the dark for so much of my life that I’m redoing my living room to be as light as the way that I’m shaping my life to be. But today, even the light wasn’t melting the sad. Until I started reading “Carry On Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed”. Immediately I was moved by Glennon Doyle Melton’s raw honestly about the human experience of being vulnerable and open and forming connections with others who, when exposed themselves, share the same experience: life is hard.
Right smack at the beginning, Melton says, “Because the way of folks is brokeness, the only way to live peacefully is to forgive everyone constantly, including yourself”. Oh yeah, forgiving myself. I had forgotten about that as I was berating myself for being not fun enough, too open, too tired, too much like a grandmother at age 34. So I forgave myself in that minute for not being perfect and remembered the only thing better than being perfect is being genuine. Melton refers to herself as ‘a work of art in progress’. Beautifully put!
She continues to talk about the hole within herself that she tried to fill in various ways (the same hole I was feeling that I fill with shopping, eating, controlling what I eat, exercising and other small OCD habits such as aligning everything perfectly to ensure nothing will go wrong in life). She says, “That’s how you can tell you’re filling yourself with the wrong thing. You use a lot of energy and in the end, you feel emptier and less comfortable than before”. Wow, is that ever true. You could even substitute “hanging out with the wrong person” to measure the health or toxicity of a relationship in which you are investing.
Breathe. Air. Light. Health. Reading this book brings me back to center. Maybe I am on an island but there are bridges to everyone else’s islands as well. I loved the book so much I sent a copy to Buen Maestra rush shipping so we can read and reflect together. I highly recommend picking up a copy.
No comments:
Post a Comment