Today is the last day of this trip around the sun. I hope I get to make many more… but fewer as brutal as this last one has been (if I could make a request).
I’ve learned a lot in these years of crisis and the past six months of trauma more than any other time I can remember. It’s interesting how little credit we give to adult growth and the ignition of empowerment that comes at a particular stage in adulthood. We give so much credit to babies and children for their cognitive and personal development, then we send them off into the world with the title of adult and assume the figuring out has occurred.
I have faced fear, rejection, deceit, and so much more in the face, willing time to freeze so I can get off the crazy train and settle down by a peaceful brook where I no longer have to look at the world. Life doesn’t afford many of us the power to walk away stepping into peace. So I continue to face it, and the only way out is through it all.
Someone told me recently on an extraordinarily difficult, nostalgic day, “Once today is over, it’s over. You’ll get through it; then it will be tomorrow.”
The cynic in me thought, well, tomorrow I’ll just feel the same, so what’s the point?
The point was I have to get through it. One step, one minute, one moment, one day, one holiday, one birthday, one memory, one event… at a time. And as each of those times passes, they pass. Sure, I’ll have the next difficult moment to come, but it too will pass.
Yesterday, as a nation, we celebrated freedom. I sat on a hillside with a friend on either side of me, one rubbing my back as I cried, fearing seeing familiar faces in the crowd, thinking of how it should have been different, how magical it could have been… then wondering if that magic, the magic that used to be mine was occurring on the same hill just faces away. I cried. I talked. I cried some more. And then the uber-loud quiet inside my head stopped with the first BOOM of the firework show. I sat there next to my friend and watched. Like everyone else, I ooohed and ahhed. For twenty minutes, my view was the show. My mind emptied. I sat upon itchy grass, watching the dark sky pop with color, smoke hovering over the crowd, and for those moments, I was simply alive.
There are quiet moments when the quiet isn’t overwhelmingly loud, but the sounds of life fill my ears. I will get through it all. I am broken. I get that. But I’m also doing it… living through it all. The empty, the full, the strong, the weak, the vulnerable, the light… I’m doing the work to live with transparency and authenticity for myself and my children, for my work resonating with those who travel a similar path looking to grow, learn, and teach, and for the future I’ve allowed myself to dream.
Living inside the vulnerable is love. It’s self-love, care for those around us, and respect to honor all sides. I’ve always thought showing vulnerability is pure and kind, not weak. The best way to let others in is to be pure and transparent, even when it’s difficult. Tomorrow, I will step out into the world on the path for betterment. Hitting the pavement before 6am, I will continue to work to take back my power, doing the hard work, and thriving inside my vulnerabilities. I’ll do it without toxic positivity, without judgment but with accountability for those around me as well as for myself. I will watch how I talk to myself, opting to treat myself as someone I love. I will look back on this year and maybe even the years before, perhaps as I ring in a new trip around the sun, and I will note how far I’ve fallen and how far I loved myself to rise.
So, cheers to everyone who gets to make a new journey around our star.
Be well
~Stella