Our size or shape. Our infirmities. Our diagnoses. Our age.
Our income or material possessions.
Our pasts, our wounds, our disappointments.
Our previous unwise choices.
Among the usual suspects.
One-hit wonders.
Over the hill.
THINGS WE ARE
Made of starstuff.
There are days when I honestly feel that the size of my feet may be a crime against humanity. Same for the way I seem to order (?) my life by piles, my tendency to procrastinate, the slow speed at which I move. I am not, you are not any of those things, regardless of the fact that they do exist. That is all they do, exist. They are not us.
There is a tendency among most humans to view our flaws (by our definition) as being, at best, only slightly less horrendous than a rip in the space/time continuum. We are fully capable of punishing ourselves for varying from an ideal. The parts of us that show carry most of the blame. Likely we have been struggling under those burdens for a lifetime.
What we are is capable of learning to love, with mad passion and without reservation, ourselves. It is no longer acceptable, not that it ever was but that didn't stop us, to go picking about with tweezers and dental probes among the moments and incarnations of our pasts to find the hurtful, humiliating, couldn't-you-just-die parts and feasting on them. They happened, they are not us, we are not them. Exposed to time and the elements, even granite turns to dust.
No matter what there has been, each morning delivers a new day. Each of those days carries us further from the past. It is so much harder to shine when we labor under our own imagined shadows.
4 comments:
"... only slightly less horrendous than a rip in the space/time continuum."
You have such a way with words.
Our infirmities and age are such determining factors in how we carry ourselves through this journey, but you're right, our mental and emotional abilities can make life a glorious adventure.
Kass - Thank you. As I continue to seek the good of our moments, it seems unlikely that we were ever intended to define ourselves by the effects of gravity and time. The resilient spirit, our metaphoric red purse or pair of red shoes, apparently carries us beyond presumed limitations. It IS a glorious adventure, punctuated less and less I hope, by doubt and fear. Happy New Year, my resilient friend. xo
Your wish will enhance my resolve to make it so.
Kass - Let us be sturdy and stubborn, only in the best ways. xo
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