Sometimes a hunger rises within me. A hunger to be something, do everything. All I can see, all I can feel is all I am not. I have listened many times to the yawning want within me. Overwhelmed myself with what must be accomplished to satiate it. Buried myself in one dream to prove my purpose. And always, and never kindly, I end up back in the same place as the same person.
I keep being this person. Again and again I am this person. Even as I grow, even as I accomplish. I can’t see those things, be filled by them – all I am and have done and traveled and healed.
I write of simple things, my reader. I write of things we easily know but things we don’t easily believe. Seeds unplanted, potential unrealized. Simple wisdom that must be sought after, tended to and protected.
My seeking and tending is iterative. I return and return to the wound. I try many angles. Practice repeatedly. Neglect and return.
So I know, my reader, that my problem is clear. Both you and I can see I won’t ever be enough by being more. But my delving into this idea like it is new and unexplored is my work. I no longer want to know this truth. I want to be it.
And in this dive I have invited you in on, I see I am the same, unchanged and will continue to be unchanged until this person and the pieces of me and the stories of me, fill me. The only way to master my yearning for more is to let that yearning go. Release it. Feel it and choose instead of plans of more, deep breaths and exploration of me now.
So as I breath deep let me tell you something amazing I did today.
It goes like this. My partner was making breakfast for us this morning in the woods. I had spent a good hour or more lying under the piney trees and trees with big, star leaves breathing deep. The sun was magic in the canopy. I honestly don’t think there is a more beautiful sight to me then a tree canopy with sun dancing in it. Leaves were falling too. Imagine that. A dry summer finally leads to some leaves falling in October, not December. And I got to watch them. From way up high these brown, dried leaves would float and swirl down. I was delighted. The dogs slept beside me. My partner slept near by.
Awake he musters himself and starts our breakfast. Bacon, tortillas, eggs, avocado and orange juice. Our normal camping fare and I was excited. As the sun started dancing on me as I lay on my blanket, I thought, how nice it would be to have my meal prepared and just handed to me. So I lay there. And he cooks. At some point he whines, “why are you not helping me?” Well you know why and I know why but he doesn’t know why. I am hurt and respond, “I made us our last three meals! That’s why.” We get silent, unsure of how to proceed. As the silent sits, a sadness grows in me. I made those meals with such joy to be cooking for us. Why can’t he just make me one in return.
Curious how this conflict might have progressed in your life? In ours it would devolve into blame and he would hurt deeply under it.
But this morning I had been breathing deep under the trees and the rush of my feelings and mind found a new stream to travel. He asked me what was wrong and I told him, “I am sad but that is ok because a day is full of many emotions.” My new peace wasn’t his and he repeated the blame so often used on him. “You do so much and I am not enough,” he echoed.
“That isn’t a very kind framing of yourself,” I said. Yes, I said that. “I thought we were going to cook together too. I wanted to. But then I was lying here having such a wonderful time doing nothing at all except for watching you and started to think how nice it would be if a plate of food was just given to me.”
And do you know what I did next, me, the person who’s only logic had been blame for years. I apologized for not communicating my desire to him. I really did. And it was one of those beautiful apologies that encompassed all truths, his and mine and all of it. It was filled so fully with love. Love for myself who gives and wanted to be cared for. Love for him who wanted to enjoy cooking with me in the woods and is terrified of not being enough. And underpinning it all, love for life. Life swaying above me. Life, my own, taking slow, full breaths feeling alive. And our life, all five of us in our tiny growing family.
Isn’t that enough to sail merrily through the day. Isn’t that growth beyond my dreams. Yes, it is. And I feel that now too. I released the hunger to be more. I am rejoicing in who I am. What a writing job well done!
-El An Gilman-