"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." - Lao Tzu
I am quickly coming to accept that walking so much means my thoughts will quite often spin "out of control." Speaking of which, I am unsure as of why we try to "control" our thoughts so much in the first place. Possibly because they can be painful as hell... :)
Recently, my thought patterns surround my past life, and the positive aspects of it. Out in the bush, I turned on my phone, and read a couple of letters written to me, that I have not read in quite some time. Painful, with a lingering bite, akin to the pinch of stinging nettle, it was not at all pleasant to read. My eyes quickly cascading down the phone screen, glowing white, bright, and mean in the surrounding darkness... The blue blinking away brimming waterfalls, threatening to once again pour for months on end, without even a seventh day of rest. I read all about the pain I had caused others, all about long lost and forgotten memories... Pain cinched my heart in her strong, overwhelming grasp. Suffocating me till I could hardly breath. I slowly felt filled with more emotion, more memory, more water than I could bear. I read of past dreams that had been lost forever, like a single grain of white sugar in an oversized jar of salt. I thought to myself, as I often do when life gets hard, how did I get here? Do I want to be here? All alone... Here... In this big, wide, scary, untrustworthy world - where I am vulnerable not only to the wind, rain, and sun, but strangers who scare me, and worst of all - my own mind?
Back home, it was so easy to numb. So easy to run. Run into the arms of bottles and wrap myself in consoling words and hugs of friends, who all loved me unconditionally. Run to my cellular device, where I could distract myself, or cry to a voice on the other side for hours on end. Run into the solace of my work, where I could leave my sorrow at the door and lose myself in the struggles of my clients, pretending my heart was not broken and barely beating as it was; it was all I could do to suck in all the loose and flailing parts of me for 50 minutes at a time. Rubbing concealer under my cracked, red, and raw eyes, and being present with my clients in their pain, beating myself over the head with loads of counter-transference and learned, patterned, stories of guilt and blame from my female generations past, and years of drowning in my own perfectionism.
Out here, I have no choice but to face the pain. To face what lurks inside my brain. I came here to heal my soul, to be true to myself, and experience a land I had dreamed of for 10 years. One of the most frustrating parts of my journey, is that I thought I could run, even further than I did back home, from my pain here. I fantasized that leaving the country would for some reason mean all my struggles would linger back home... I have quickly found - it does not work that way.
I often feel trapped, even all the way out here! All alone, in the middle of nowhere. I feel trapped by the big fat thumb of perfectionism and patriarchy. I am exhausted of battling the ghost of a remnant distant memory. I have slowly made the decision, over the past few months, to refuse to continue to let my every waking and dreaming moment and all that lies inbetween, be ruled by my past.
I choose to let the woman I always thought I "should" be, go. And simply be... Who. I. Am. I recognize that it is not him who is grasping, holding frantically on, white knuckled and determined to see magic before his eyes - of me becoming this certain "type" of woman...
He has freed himself. He has let that rope go, and is walking calmly, firmly, and far off in the distance, toward the future he wants. It is not him at all, but me. Me, myself, and I. Who will not let this idea of perfectionism go. Who keeps trying to make sense of the madness that will forever be madness.
It is I who is choosing to be dragged behind the chariot of perfectionism, face down in the dirt, refusing to relinquish control and let the rope slip through my fingertips. I am scared to stand up in the middle of the ring of spectators, dirty, dusty, cut and bruised... For what was my fight worth then? I have recently thought... Maybe the stadium seats are empty, maybe there is no one keeping me here, but myself, and maybe... Just maybe, I could stand! Stand tall, covered in the dust and dirt of my hard work to get where I am, and smile at the freedom that letting go affords me.
So... Who am I? Well... I don't exactly know! And I find that beautiful
I don't think any of us truly "know" all that we are. I know I enjoy writing. Feeling the world through the written creation and expression of words... I like sunflowers and laughter and reading and dancing and bare feet and walking and climbing and learning and wine and passion and music and emotion and swearing and friendship and family and sunrises and sunsets and a star scattered desert sky and crisp, clean, thin alpine air... For now, knowing just that, is enough for me.
"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." - Lao Tzu
Xx
Rachel