WHAT DO YOU WANT??

and other questions that shove me off a cliff

The snow is finally falling here on the NE coast of Michigan. My dog is curled into a donut shape at the foot of the bed, I can’t stop eating “Great Grains” cereal, and the thick, existential grief is pouring in and threatening to drown my toasty warm heart. I’m trying to let it do this ping-pong thing, where I have down dips followed by “oh yeah, I remember how to be with this” and a subsequent swing back up. I’ve noticed, however, that my down dips aren’t the same as they used to be. They are… softer. Clearer. More compassionate.

I’m in a weird season, which I should have seen coming. I guess in some ways I did, and in some ways I definitely did not. I feel the most settled that I ever have yet also completely at a loss for what I want and what anything means to me. This, too, makes sense as I encounter myself as raw and exposed as I’ve ever been, trying to walk around and interact without the masks I wore for so many years. It makes total sense why I would be once again bumping up against questions about what I value and desire, because I am no longer matched with the values and desires I used to hold. Kind of exhausting, but it’s still a process I am grateful to be immersed in. I’d hate to be yearning for things that don’t reflect the growth I’ve experienced. I do still occasionally find myself spending money on certain things and once they’re in my hands I’m like, “Why this? Did I think it was going to do something for me?” And that leads me, again and again, right back to the almighty question: WHAT DO I WANT?

I don’t know, man.

I want to be happy. So, what is happiness to me? It’s the way Cowboy’s ears lightly bounce around when we’re on a walk. It’s stacks of books in my room, mostly unread, staring at me with their bright colors and attractive fonts. It’s picking out a new journal after I’ve finished the 20th of my life and excitedly guessing which aesthetic will speak to the next year of this and that. It’s seeing a particularly great performance in a TV show I decided to watch and remembering what it’s like to truly feel passionate about something.

I guess I am pretty happy. I could go on forever, naming my happy things. I know how to hold and have them. I’m pretty married to happiness at this point, so I suppose I don’t need to worry about wanting it.

So: WHAT DO I WANT?

I want security. Well, I have a roof over my head and a dog to kiss a thousand times and food to eat and a car to drive and friends to send love notes to. I have confidence in myself, and in my higher power. That’s security to me.

AGAIN - WHAT DO I WANT?

Maybe I don’t actually want anything. Maybe my brain/ego just absolutely gets off on having a problem to solve. Maybe this feeling of missing or wanting something is just my ego trying to create a circumstance in which we have something high-stakes to focus on or orient ourselves toward.

My life is not a problem to be solved. I am not a problem to be solved.

Deep breath.

This is the ultimate landing pad for me. Sometimes I will go months not remembering this. I’ll be stuck in rumination mode trying to solve a puzzle that actually does not even exist. I think a lot of us get stuck here, and some of us get stuck for YEARS. There is honestly something brilliant behind all those gratitude lists your therapist or coach tells you to make. Those lists bring us to the here and now. What is available to me right now? What can I gently direct myself to right here?

And through that focus, I actually feel better. I’m not reaching or wondering. I’m being with what’s happening, and if it’s uncomfortable to sit still and be with reality then therein lies my real task: mustering up the compassion to be with the honest truth of myself and my life. Doing this also helps me to uncover my true needs, the needs of my heart and my spirit. This is how I find out what I’m actually devoted to rather than getting lost in the debris of what my brain is trying to assume is a problem.

So, for the last time and with a slight verbiage change: WHAT AM I DEVOTED TO?

I’m not sure I actually know. It’s changing again.

So it’s time for me to find out. Time to shape shift.

I do know that I’m here (in this place, at this time) to find a new kind of power. I’m here to give myself the opportunity to be with myself and with my soon-to-be-uncovered revamped values and hopes in a way that is guaranteed to change my life on many levels. I know now that with the intention to reclaim aspects of self comes the inevitable pendulum swing back into the places where I’ve been lost, abandoned, and powerless. It’s remarkable how many themes from those moments in my life are already finding a way to present themselves to me again to see how I’ll approach their invitations. It’s happening through these little situations here and there that ask, “Are you going to do the same thing?” and then they eagerly watch me like a hawk to see what I’ll do.

And, with immense gratitude toward myself, I don’t do the same thing. I practice new things. And the universe vibrates in response, and I feel it.

Doing what is in service of yourself, of your own self love and respect, is hard as fuck.

It’s deeply painful and annoying. It draws up voices you haven’t heard from in a long time who ask questions that sting and they hurl insults that threaten to dissolve all the nice things you’ve done for yourself. These are the parts of us that really don’t want us to forget that we’ve made mistakes, the parts who demand to remain a victim so they can get attention, and it’s in that space of anger and resentment where I usually throw up my hands and decide to let those pieces have their way. Honestly, if they’re that angry they really must be moving some important shit around. Maybe they haven’t been heard and held enough. And now, because I’ve once again remembered that my life isn’t a problem to be fixed and I can set down my security worries, I have space to hear what they all have to say.

It’s also really easy to experience those things coming up and be like OH YIKES, I thought I told you not to visit anymore? and then panic about backtracking, or feel ashamed because we thought we were “over it,” and then do anything to avoid being uncomfortable.

But I’ve learned that if something is knocking at the door, it has more to say.

If it’s knocking at the door again, you’re ready for the next bit of life-saving information.

Our willingness to greet it again, even if we’re sick of it, even if we’re angry that it’s here again, speaks powerful volumes about how much we have truly guided ourselves into a place of deep self-love.

The experience of being alive is so nuanced and terrifying and fantastic. Some days it feels brutal and unfair and some days I am overflowing with anticipation of the next miracle. I want to be with all of it. I want to cry openly and tell people when I love their hats and share my breakfast with birds. I want to travel to Tokyo and embarrass myself trying to speak Japanese at the 7/11. I want to see a beautiful stranger and tell them I want to go on a date with them. I want to change my hair and get a new tattoo and feel like the 130th new version of myself. I want it all.

And if I want it all, I need to be open to it all. So I guess I am deeply devoted to something right now. I’m devoted to facing the pieces of myself that threaten to keep me from my humanness, or from experiencing the fullness of others, which is such a gift to see. It’s that sweet space of openness that helps me to remember to honor others where they are and adjust accordingly. I really can go with curiosity down uncertain roads because I trust myself to navigate.

Right now I have absolutely no idea where I’m going but I still know that every step is perfect, and because I know that every step is perfect, I can slow down and zoom in and be extremely intentional with my life. The days seem longer. Aloneness feels fuller. Fears pass through me like I am a screen, rather than a sponge. I don’t fully know what’s happening, but I’m here for it, and I guess that’s what I wanted all along.

Thanks. I love you.