I’ve spent most of my life questioning things. I started with pondering why we didn’t celebrate Christmas and then wondered why my pin straight hair turned curly (puberty) and everything snowballed from there. I can be certain of a thing and then, I’m not sure. I’m anxious. Wary. Doubtful.
I have a list of childhood traumas that contributed to this questioning, but I don’t think that’s where it began. I think some of us are programmed differently. More sensitive. More concerned. Hesitant. Every time we are betrayed by the world, or we witness a betrayal, we question the world and then, ourselves. Everything becomes an opening to explore how we have failed and where we fall short.
I’ve seen therapists and read books and watched YouTube videos and burned the contents of articles to my brain. I’ve used mantras and journals and deep meditation. I’ve worked to reset and do over and begin again. Some of it has worked. Some of my efforts have resulted in a sort of calm. I’ve never quite accepted myself as is and without caveats and disclaimers, but I’ve found the most peace I can, for the most part.
Then there are moments when it feels as though I’m back at square one. I am five and I am wondering why Santa is a myth perpetuated by well, everyone, and my parents are begging me to keep such revelations to myself. Please and thank you. Your knowledge is yours to keep, but don’t share it because you’ll make others unhappy and they’ll resent you and be angry and, you’ll ruin everything. And I know that I don’t want to ruin anything. At all.
So, I’ve become adept at apologizing and burying and agonizing in the quiet sort of way that doesn’t disturb anything outside of me. I might poke at someone for a moment but it’s the briefest of moments and then, I move on. I focus most of my energy on self-annihilation and spare others my spiral.
Of course, there is a profound fear of loss that pairs brilliantly with my enquiring mind and self-doubt. And so, I can’t connect to my gut in any way that’s meaningful. I’m connected but only in the way that one is peripherally connected in a terrible service zone. I can hear every other word and I’m not sure I’m hearing those correctly and everything is broken up and scratchy and uncertain. At some point there is just a blank, resounding silence and I pause before “hello? Are you still there?”
Sometimes my insides answer but then, there is a bad connection. It is a tough area. Try again, maybe later. But then later is not good and later than that is no good, and it never seems to be good. Service is always shit and there is always a question as to what is being heard.
Then there’s the whole issue of hysterical women. Emotional, overly dramatic, over-the-top, always too much women. Too reactive, too sensitive, too everything. Always too everything.
In the space between my sense of self and my sex, I find myself wondering who I really am and what I really want. I find myself circling back rather than doubling down. I find myself in sentences where my voice endlessly upticks at the end, everything turned into a question.
I am happy?
I am okay?
I want more?
I deserve more?
It’s all good?
There are all the things I think and feel, and I stay quiet. I stay quiet for fear of rocking the boat and changing things. Even when things have already changed, I fear shifting them further away from what I know and what makes sense and what feeds me.
I have had some mind-bending and heart-shattering experiences and they have profoundly changed me as a human. I’m certain I’d like to be fixed, but I’m not sure in what realm that fix is real. I’m not sure if the fix looks like me, as a secure person. I’m not sure if the fix looks like things moving through and moving out and not sitting. At all, ever.
I make it more complicated because I couch my simple, four-word needs, in one thousand other words. I make things nicer by burying one rather unimpressive spikey bit in 40,000 yards of bubble wrap. I smooth edges that are already soft to the touch and carve away the parts that define and give meaning and shape and reason. I take one step forward and then one thousand steps back.
I’m scared, often. I question my value and my worth and my place and my people. I question sincerity and reality and explanations and excuses. I challenge promises and assurances. I take something that could be nice, and I mutate it into something stressful and a thing to be avoided. I chastise myself for this exercise in self-destruction and I stop and then, I start all over again. The washing machine with a perpetually locked door, no ability to release, an endless spin cycle to observe.
If we let go of who we are, then what are we left with in the end? How do we stand in the world? If we think this isn’t who we are, and this is who we are, profoundly shaped by others and experiences and life, then how do we unpeel the layers to get back to the parts of us that are whole and pure?
I’ve started over so many times. I spent some time being angry about these do-overs, and then realized, it’s my process. It’s my way.
When I first started running, I had to walk. That’s not me being cute with my words or cliché. I walked, for months. Then I shuffled. Then I jogged for a moment and walked for two. I didn’t time myself, not yet. My process was different. A Couch-to-5K that was specially programmed for me, by me. I had my frustrations, but overall, I was kind to myself. I’d get there, but I needed time. More time than some and less time than others. Just enough time. Patience. Practice. Faith.
If I didn’t get to where I wanted to be, I would get close, and that felt like good enough. I would endlessly reset my expectations to be just beyond my fingertips but not inconsequential. It would feel like a mountain to be moved, but one that would indeed be transplanted, one spoonful at a time, in time. I would not be some wayward Sisyphus. I would get to the top. I would conquer.
You see, soul growth cannot be rushed. There is no quick fix. There is no one-size-fits-all, go on a retreat and find yourself a 2.0 version. What you believe to be 2.0 is 1.4 and the 0.6 will never follow if the misconception lives. So, the process must be a full commitment. It is not a resignation, but rather, an appreciation. Hope.
More tomorrow…
x
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 