Today it seems appropriate to write. After days, weeks, months of frigid temperatures, we are looking at a day that may reach a whoopin’ 37 degrees!! Alleluia. I know this may not seem like much to many, but to anyone on the east coast-especially anywhere north, you are feeling me. Right?! I mean snow is pretty and all, but WTF?
Anyway, today is a day to start airing out and letting some
light in. Good God, let the damn
sun shine!
Much to my surprise, I have used these ridiculously cold
months well. Didn’t really see it that way for most of it but now, coming out
the other end, I can see the good. That happens often, doesn’t it? Not seeing
the necessity of it all til much later. If we are open to it, that is. While in
the middle of the cold, dark, quiet of winter, we can’t imagine what is lying
under the ground. . It just feels freaking bone chilling, bleak, and like a big
fat enthusiasm sucker. At least it
does for me. And patience has never really been my thing. I have a thought; a
dream, an idea and….I want it NOW. Immediate satisfaction. And I want it to be
easy. Forget the waiting, planning, and work they would require. That takes way
too long. I lose either the interest or the much needed guts to make it happen.
Not sure which of these is the first to go, it’s kind of like a chicken and egg
thing. But I know that my brain can be a place where great ideas go to…..not
die but hibernate. They all just hang, piled under a wide variety of thoughts
that also have found a comfy place to hide or run around with the same pent up
energy as my kids after this long ass winter.
So, left on my own, in the middle of a cold quiet dark
winter, with a noggin full of thoughts that are begging for play time…… and,
well, let’s just say it has been proven to be pretty damn painful.
And required.
I, without a doubt, needed to experience the immense
frustration of being left alone with……me.
Nothing major happened. No crazy big earth shattering
experiences to talk about. I have had plenty of those in my years. They can just
distract me. No, this was different. It was quiet, cold, and dark. It left me
no options. It was deal or crumble.
Now I could tell you about how hard I am on myself for being
at this crossroads….again. Cause I am. I do that. It's an awesome tool for
beating one self up. “I should know better. I have been here before. Blah blah
blah…” The ego can have a field day with this one. I am very aware that I have
all those past cross road moments stored and filed in that crowded head of
mine. I can’t tell you where the file is for where I left my keys or the rules
of a football game (even though I was a cheerleader for 4 years) but I can
absolutely tell you every moment I have been given this same choice. Self will or surrender?
Self-will for me is a tireless journey of trying to be
“normal”.
What an aspiration huh? Normal. Not too special, not too shiny.
Just under the radar. Average.
The thing is this is NEVER enough. Never has been and I
don’t think it ever will be.
I don’t believe any of us are innately average. I think we live in a world that
tries to convince us otherwise and we all go along with it because the
alternative scares the living shit out of us.
So, what’s my brand of normal chasing? It always comes back
to food/body with me. Too much, too little, and anything in-between. Obsession
and the silent FU to the world rebellion at it’s finest.
Here’s where it got me…..
Over the last year or so I put on about 30-40 pounds. I
have never done this. I have always been up and down the scale but we are
talking 10-15 pounds the most. I have never put on 40 pounds unless I am prego.
But, heck, I was on a mission. A mission to do it MY way. Fuck everyone, every
diet, and every program, whatever ..I was on a mission for normalcy. I was
unconsciously (or very consciously) shooting for under the radar. For
average. I was on a mission to hide.
It worked. Sorta.
It started out fun. “Yeah…fuck it! I’ll have another. Why
not? I am the captain of this ship no? I can do whatever the hell I want. I
want not to care. I want to hang with ease and blend in. This IS what I want.
Right? This way is more fun? I am having fun. I swear. I am going to love my
new size. I am THAT evolved. Wait…I
don’t want THIS. How the hell did
I get HERE? Whose idea was this anyway?! What an idiot! This hurts. I want out.
I am suffocating. I am stuck! “
As my body grew, I got smaller. I was literally building a wall around my heart. My own light dimmed. I
retreated deeper into my own cold place. Life got scarier and further away
until I found myself on my knees at that crossroads once again.
Self will or surrender?
Just like the life that lies under the cold frigid ground
working tirelessly to push it’s way towards the sun and bloom into it’s own breathtaking
beauty because it is their life’s purpose to do so, I too have a purpose. We all do. Nothing average, but uniquely
ours. We all have a far from “normal” spirit that will grow towards a light if we
choose to open our heart and allow the sun in.
So today, and just for today, I am choosing surrender. I am
choosing to stop chasing normal and sit in the uncomfortability of my own
greatness.
Here’s what I think about our shared, but unique, greatness.
It is not as peachy pretty like we think it should be, it is
awkwardly loud, it can’t sit still, it asks pestering questions, it
relentlessly doubts itself, it is too big to fit into any folders we have tried
to file it into in our heads and it is busting at the world’s prescribed
average seams.
I am using this old (but new) blog to put a stake in the
warming ground of surrender. What is getting ready to bloom underneath? Only
God knows. Thank goodness. I only have to show up.
