119.

Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.

                                                                                -- Cormac McCarthy

                                                                                       All the Pretty Horses

About two winters back I had a conversation on healing with a friend who was going through a tough time. I stumbled upon one of my responses as the New Year came and went and as I was considering what sort of efforts I’d like to make this year to enrich my life, strengthen my soul, and find peace in places that haven’t known it for some time. This letter from my old self seemed rather poignant and helped me think about healing and the process of finding our strengths after navigating the tumult of uncertainty on those long roads we sometimes travel down. So here’s to listening to ourselves every now and again.

***

[on healing and the tendency to take refuge within to spite that which is without]

Inwards, inwards, inwards?  

I suppose it's a matter of not "recoiling" or "retreating" inward. It’s actually a matter of not hiding inside yourself when you don't even recognize the self you are seeking refuge within. That’s dangerous even. What matters is balance, right? The one between not hiding, but looking inward with intention and deliberate reflection - this demands solitude (and courage). So then you have to balance solitude and sharing - which is a matter of listening to yourself and your needs. Last night at meditation, my teacher was hitting all these topics: balance, kindness, and what I have come to understand as an honesty with ourselves. The Zen Masters refer to this as mindfulness. I think honesty is a foundation that must exist before mindfulness can. Then again, I’m no Zen Master. I’m just a girl with a cat* and a lot of questions.

I guess everything is always about balance, and therein lies the stress of it all…always seeking to sustain some sort of peace but remembering to allow sadness to swirl her foul dust around us when she must, and being ready to blow her a kiss when its time to let go. I mean, I guess, it's about finding a place of safety within yourself...safe enough where you are no longer resisting yourself or your feelings. (I'm typing this, wondering if that's what I did my last three weeks of graduate school - when my partner left me with the ghost of our relationship's past symbolized by an empty bedroom, six shelves worth of the likes of Seamus Heaney commingling with Langston Hughes and James Baldwin, and a lone, hand-crafted mug sitting empty by the sink - as I marched to the market every day for my Whale's Tale and American Spirits and sat on the porch distracting myself by researching the lives, mistakes, and triumphs of others).  I guess that whole parenthetical aside is part of it too. We fight ourselves with cigarettes and whisky and intellectual circles but we fail.  Suddenly it just happens to us – we happen to ourselves - and eventually we have to embrace it or we go mad.  We change. We grow into ourselves without that self being tainted by another's perception. We are completely free. We have to find comfort in ourselves and then eventually find comfort outside of that self too - discovery rarely happens in comfortable environments.  In the center of the first page of my current journal I wrote two words:

 "Get Uncomfortable."

The thrill isn't from the discomfort, (how could it be?) but from finding comfort again and again. With ourselves. With new people. With new places. With new everythings.  

I’ve written an essay now (which I apologize for), but it’s because I keep trying to say what this notorious it’s about, but that isn't possible.  It's about everything.  It's about whatever you are willing to allow it to be about. It's about finding your gusto, pushing your limits, deciding what kind of you you want to be, and figuring out how to. Then remembering that whatever you want to be is enough. Its about doing enough for that self. Believing in yourself. Separating from the myth of past selves, while not erasing the history. It's also about sharing:  yourself with yourself, your stories with others, and your past with your present. You have to resist burying the past and try to honor it in favor of an evolving present. History is always with us. Faulkner said it, Gatsby lived it, and every human who has ever lived, I’m certain, has struggled through it too. So, in a way, we are all in it together. The trick is trying to forgive the past. If you can’t, then you may find yourself floating face down in the pool you’ve only ever used once.**

 *this was written before little Sullyman meowed his last meow. let's all hope he's living large in kitty heaven.
**Gatsby reference, y'all. That book seems to always work itself into my business and darken the mood a lil' bit.