Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Grow a Pair


Change is imminent (once again).

I'm trying to concentrate but right now there is a kitten screeching in my living room. I have brief moments of alarm several times a day when I realize what a crazy cat lady I've become, and I worry that I've slipped into two-dimensionality and that my life is just cats and the beach, and not much more.

All that is a total illusion though. I never would have guessed three years ago that I would be where I am now, doing what I'm doing where I'm doing it. And my experiences here have been so much more complex and rich than I have led the Internet to believe.

So I thought I would set the record straight by injecting a little honesty into this black hole of infinite information of indiscriminate value that is the blogosphere. I've done it in the past when I was sad, so it's only fair that I do it now too, when life is so different but things are still changing.

I owe it to myself to write about all this, if anything so I can learn from it in the future.

Right now change is imminent and I can feel it like a pressure drop, or a rise in moisture and the thickness of it. I'm in the thick of it (again) and I want to say it doesn't concern me much, but here I am riding this see-saw between who I was, where I am and what I want to become and I have found myself, once again, wondering if I have done enough.

The moments that led to my realizing that my best was enough were humbling. They brought me to my knees. They made me aware of my own short-givings and gave me a different kind of modesty, and a real understanding that compassion mattered. More recent moments are leading to me realizing that what I'm doing now, is no longer my best. I can do more. My best is yet to come. And it's time for me to reach for it.

I'm getting married in 90-something days, which means everything is happening all at once all the time. The last time I wrote extensively, I was going through a painful break-up. I was lonely.

This time, it's a little harder because I'm not lonely, I'm just overwhelmed. There are so many things to think about all the time, and most of them are lovely.

Life is good. But I want more, and I think I can get it. I think I have what it takes.

It's easy to lose perspective on this whole growth process, because it seems to happen slowly and quickly at the same time. We're like rose babies reaching full stop for the sunlight. Sometimes we fell somewhere glorious and we just shoot straight up, other times we sprout in the shadows. I like to think I'm the kind of sprout who's sassy enough to grow claws and crawl into the sunlight. I want to crawl into the sunlight and bloom. I think it'll be really spectacular.

First, I've got to grow a pair. By that I mean a pair of wings - I need to engineer these things made of pure wit and hard-earned wisdom that will take me anywhere I need to go. I've got them now and I feel pretty confident in them - at least, as confident as I'll ever be. Here I am standing on the ledge of the rest of my life and the only way to really soar like I want to do, like I do in my dreams  - is to trust my readiness completely and lean into free fall.

It's not like I haven't fallen before. I've fallen plenty by now. This is a different kind of fall. This is the kind of fall that is so aerodynamically precise that it catapults you to - somewhere - who gives a crap because I mean look at yourself - you're flying.

Anyway that's where I am. I've built myself a new pair of wings and I'm going for it.