But this is what I’ve learned the hard way: what people think about you means nothing in comparison to what you believe about yourself.
I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away.
What I’m learning, essentially, is to stand where I am, plain and sometimes tired. Unflashy, profoundly unspectacular. But present and connected and grounded deeply in the love of God, which is changing everything.
What would our lives be like if our days were studded by tiny, completely unproductive, silly, nonstrategic, wild and beautiful five-minute breaks, reminders that our days are for loving and learning and laughing, not for pushing and planning, reminders that it’s all about the heart, not the hustle?
For twenty years, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I don’t want to wait anymore.
Which brings us, literally, to the heart of the conversation: the heart, the cavernous ache. Am I loved? Does someone see me? Do I matter? Am I safe?
For a long time, I wanted people to change – to be less cruel, to be decent, to be fair, to tell the truth. That would be lovely. But I’m not waiting around for that. I’m deciding who gets to enter my spaces, my heart, my mind, my living room, because I’m responsible for those places, no one else. I’m responsible to protect my mind, my heart, my family.
What does it mean to show up as deeply myself right now? What does it mean to give my whole self to my community instead of only the parts that feel acceptable and easy?
I’m learning to choose myself instead of giving the best of myself to people and relationships and institutions. Loyalty to myself. Belonging to myself. Looking for joy just for myself. I need a disproportionate amount of care right now, and the one who is responsible for that care is me. I can’t assume that someone else will do it; it’s my responsibility to create a rhythm for my life that nurtures me, that brings me joy, that allows me to flourish, even given the weight of things I’m carrying.
Hospitality is holding space for another person to be seen and heard and loved. It’s giving someone a place to be when they’d otherwise be alone. It’s, as my friend Sibyl says, when someone leaves your home feeling better about themselves, not better about you.
If anger is active and powerful, grief and sadness are tender, vulnerable. Anger puts us back in the power position, while grief lays us bare, like letting ourselves lie down on a sidewalk, knowing we could get stepped on, crushed. Grief gives up the pretense of control.
Self-compassion is letting yourself off the hook, letting yourself be human and flawed and also amazing. It’s giving yourself credit for showing up instead of beating yourself up for taking so long to get there.
I know now that I’m strong enough, brave enough, whole enough to hold it all – how it was and how it ended. What I got wrong, what I made right, who I was, who I wasn’t, who I’ve yet to become. What I miss, what was lost, what’s still unfolding. I’m not perfect or shiny or bulletproof. The story of my life is not a fairy tale. It’s not a horror story. It’s just a story like most stories – dark and light and beautiful and terrible and still being written.
It’s easy, of course, to buzz the beach and find the sparkle on good days – days when the sun is shining and your heart is light. When it gets really dark, though, that’s when you start to understand that it’s a discipline, and you need it in the dark so much more desperately than you need it in the light. Joy and celebration are practices for the long haul.
I’ve been seeing worried parents for decades now. Parents worry, and kids are mostly fine. Just do this one thing: Be enchanted by whatever’s currently enchanting your child.
Maybe walking is the speed of the soul, the exact right pacing for our bodies and spirits and hearts and minds to reconnect, to dwell together again.
If you think you’re too old to make a difference, you’re not. If you think you don’t have enough time left to build something really beautiful, you’re wrong. If you think your legacy-leaving window has closed, it hasn’t.
We’re responsible to help create a world that values questions more than answers, that celebrates learning and not just knowing, that sees failure as a part of the process of success.
Another way to look at it: self-compassion and self-care are acts of obedience, stewarding well what God has given to us, loving what he loves.
Productivity became my idol, the thing I loved and valued above all else. We all have these complicated tangles of belief and identity and narrative, and one of the early stories I told about myself is that my ability to get-it-done is what kept me around. I wasn’t beautiful. I didn’t have a special or delicate skill. But I could get stuff done, and it seemed to me that ability was my entrance into the rooms into which I wanted to be invited.
And I know now that I can trust myself, that I can belong to myself, that belonging to something larger than myself is lovely but isn’t for every season. It’s a little lonelier out here, a little rockier. I’m learning to make myself a home in the wilderness, in the unbelonging itself.