Profoundly Human (a blog)

I just enjoyed the Broadway play Hamilton (currently on the Disney channel.) If you haven’t seen it and you’re a person who enjoys plays, I highly recommend it. It educates as it entertains. As usual, it stirred me up, got me thinking about a lot of things.

There’s a line about Legacy (how it’s planting seeds in a garden you’ll never see) and if that isn’t profound, I don’t know what is. Makes ya think about who you are, how others you care about see you, what lessons they are learning (good or bad) from watching you.

By and large the last few years have been primarily about me. Yes, I say that with a totally straight face, no shame attached. I have learned how important fixing yourself is, giving care where it is needed, even seeking help when necessary to get yourself sorted. You’ll never live your “best life” or “be all you can be” if you’re stuck in the mire of your own past.

That said, it can feel, well, overwhelming at the least, to live your life every day thinking about how others perceive you. Cuz we don’t (or shouldn’t) live to please others. We need to be fully whole and fully who we were meant to be, without requiring their validation. And of course, while also doing our best to care for those around us and look out for them as well as ourselves.

We’ve been taught to pour ourselves out in service to others. Sounds good. Noble. Righteous.

BUT. I’ve learned that our love and care should always start with our own hearts, spirits, bodies, and souls. Life on planet Earth is a war, a fight. And we cannot fight if we are not healthy. We cannot fight for ourselves or others, if we are worn down, broken, frazzled, stressed and all manner of messed up. One of the things I’ve been screaming for a while now, is simply this: Self-care is NOT selfish. It is indeed mandatory.

My best and most favorite job I’ve ever had was raising kids, albeit an often thankless and difficult job, one where you’re paid in hugs and kisses (and sometimes snot being wiped onto your clothes and loads of attitude.) I’ve blogged in the past about some of the other jobs I’ve had in my life, and there were many at various times. 

There is no paycheck for parenting and none would suffice. There’s also a ton of good, wonderful, indescribably poignant good, the kind you can’t really explain to those who are not parents. My kids were my priority for so long, and it was hard when they grew up. For the first time I had TIME to worry about me. Cuz, by and large, you don’t when you’re raising kids. 

I learned a hard work ethic from my parents. A job worth doing is worth doing well. To be lazy or even thought of as lazy, was like the Cardinal Sin in our household, and my parents were always hard-working folk. For a gal who seemed born with a messed up immune system, chronic illness and fatigue, this seemed extra daunting. But I always endeavored to dig deep down and find every ounce of my strength and energy for anything I worked at, (and part of my self-care has been trying to get to the bottom of my health issues, so I can be stronger and better with each passing year.)  All of this, wanting to be good, be strong, NOT be seen as lazy, played into my perfectionism. I exhausted myself trying to live up to the expectations of others. But isn’t this just being human? Perhaps.

One day I woke up and I was in my fifties and it would be easy to give up, to think my best days are behind me, that things will never change for me, blah blah blah. I dedicated the entire year of 2019 to chasing my health HARD and fast. I made some strides and in every arena.  I’ve worked on my spirit, on digging out hard truths about me and for me. I’ve sought out healing in many areas. Found some latent diseases (like EBV and auto-immune issues) that were affecting me in negative ways. I have learned and I’m still learning what role DNA plays in who we are, and also, and surprisingly, how trauma and all that stuff that happens to us throughout our lives, can and does absolutely affect our physical health as well as our mental and emotional well-being.

It’s been quite a journey. And just when I began to feel really good, to have more energy, to feel a bit “on top” again, along came Covid-19. Isn’t that just the way life is? Always a fight, a war of some sort.

And so, now, here I am. Thinking about Legacy. Thinking about the garden I’m planting that I will never see. It’s daunting, to say the least.

I’m now at a place where I am having to yank myself up and out (of myself) a bit, and try to re-enter the world, which is made incredibly more difficult during a global pandemic, a time of isolation. I find myself getting lost in fiction worlds, books, TV binges… there’s not much else.

But who or what am I now? I guess that’s the 64-thousand dollar question. I always thought I’d be absolutely and utterly content to completely retire and do nothing, Turns out, I’m not great at it.

I have my routines, I have my writing (and trying to figure out which way I want to go in the future with that), I blog, I write poetry. I started a new novel back before the Outbreak, and haven’t touched it since. Will I get back to it?? I think I want to do another poetry collection as poetry and blogs seem to be what I write the most these days.

I have my art journaling lessons, my acrylic painting on canvas (which I have not done a ton of in recent months). And I do a ton of drawing. I came to art later in life so I put a LOT of hours in, just practicing. I’m filling notebook after notebook with sketches and journal entries. Wearing down pencil after pencil.

I felt an odd kinship with Alexander Hamilton (the play) in that he was an avid, almost obsessive writer. He was very intense in his passions and his opinions. I related to that… a lot. He wanted to leave a legacy. He wanted to make his life matter. In the end, his story ended up being a story of a REAL and quite fallible human. 

That got me thinking about how we are all so imperfect. So flawed. But we keep going. 

King David from the Bible, hell, every man who has ever been held up as great, they’ve all had that in common… humanity. Flawed. Imperfect.  And I’ve come to believe that it is just life. Striving for perfectionism is nothing but vanity. Do we seek to prove that WE might be the ONE who actually gets it right? It is to laugh.

Anyway, a really good writer would wrap this all up with a profound red bow, something that ties it all together and delivers a PUNCH of truth.

But all I’ve got is this.

Human. We are human. We are growing and evolving and struggling and trying and failing, and profoundly human.

And I will continue my fight while trying to be perhaps a bit more aware of the seeds I’m sowing today. I will speak my truth to encourage others to do the same. I will love and forgive to encourage others to do the same. And I will do what I do, until I can do it no more.

That’s all I can do.

Peace Out, my friends. 

Blog June 5, 2020 from the Virtual Blanket-Fort

I say “Ow!” when I’m poked. I sometimes lash out when I feel uncomfortable or attacked. I admit it. It’d be hard NOT to be uncomfortable this year, this month, with all that is going on. And growth is painful as a bitch.

This difficult time is definitely making me take stock, re-affirm the things I know to be true and stretch myself way beyond what is comfortable.

When hurt I do tend to retreat to a safe fall-back bunker, a virtual blanket fort of comfort and self-soothing. I’ve been camped there for about three days, trying to heal enough to poke my head back out. (Especially on social media.)

Sigh.

I find myself afraid to speak in such sensitive times. I definitely do feel like everything I say is picked apart.

I’m not a perfect person, I’m a recovering perfectionist, which, in case you have any confusion, is not a really good thing to be. It’s got the word “perfect” stuck right in there, but it is so far from being the reality.

I was looking back at some thoughts I had a few years ago and was able to say that I’ve definitely grown in some areas, but I have a long way to go. I’m not a person who does “politically-correct” very well, I don’t like to be censored. But even more than that, I don’t want to hurt people who are already hurting. But all I know is how to be myself and speak the way I speak and if I inadvertently hurt someone, try to apologize and pick up the pieces the best I can.

My religion is this: LOVE.

My fallback position is this: LOVE

My answer to most of life’s ills is this: LOVE

I don’t pretend to know how to walk out the answers to the world’s troubles, and I don’t believe in pat answers anyway. But more love, more education, hearts and minds that are opened and willing to learn and grow, this is a key for me. If it isn’t key in your life, we’re probably going to butt heads… a lot.

If you think you’ve got it all figured out, we aren’t gonna mesh well. Heaven knows I struggle with my own self daily to strike a balance between confidence and being a know-it-all. I don’t know it all but also, I’ve learned a very tough lesson about adopting the views of other’s blindly and I don’t do that anymore. And yes, I’m prickly about it. But I’m not likely to join a cult, either. I’m not much of a joiner at all these days.

As I DO feel I’m walking on eggshells, I’ll just say this. I’ve been wrong in the past, and I know I still have things to learn, especially about racism. Also I hate being judged by those who don’t know me. I’m prickly about that, too. (I have a lot of my own issues based on my own experiences, as you have yours.) Rest assured, I’m continually working on me. But I cannot and will not blindly adopt the belief systems of others, (especially when their answer is for me to just be more like them.) For me to know something and know it well, deep down, I have to examine it closely for myself. I’ve grown sick of people telling me what to say or who to be. Sick and tired. A prickly point for me? Yes, indeed.

Also, sick of all the hate, bigotry, misogyny, and racism in the world. If you’re trying to fight that, we are more on the same side than you know.

You do you and I’ll stay in my cozy fort continually working on who ME is. I’ll keep growing and keep learning. I’ll keep doing me the best way I know how to, on any given day. My virtual blanket-fort can be a lonely place at times, but sometimes that’s the point.

And sometimes I invite special folks in for a visit. Special in their love and compassion, usually. (I have little patience for criticism or judgment.)

For those fighting the good fight in big ways and small, for working on yourself, too, no matter how uncomfortable, I salute you.

(Comes out from blanket-fort long enough for fist bumps and coffee mug clinks.)

Peace Out