It’s ok. I’ll start there, in the simplest terms. It’s ok. I have come to a few realizations over these extremely trying last 18 months, some revelatory and feel massive and life-shifting, others feel minor and I hardly register their relevance on a day to day basis. Some are centered around the loss of patience for things that betray my soul, some are centered around a loss of connection and what the feels like on the inside. Some realizations are about myself and how I go through the world, some are about how those around me do, and understandings I come to by watching the suffering of someone I love. One, the one I’m saying “it’s ok” for today, is exactly that…a crystal clear view of a habit that someone I love does, and I know so many of you do the same. That’s why, I will repeat it again, for the 4th time, It’s Ok, as in it is perfectly, completely, healthily acceptable to feel excited for some piece of your life that is not here yet, but may some day be. It’s OK to shamelessly feel anticipation and wonder and joy for a plan you’re hatching that may take months, or years, to come to fruition.
Why do I need to repeat damn near half a dozen times that it’s ok to do so? Simple, again. We carry guilt for about four billion things in our lives, letting it burrow in like some seed we never planted, and we water that stupid thing with every new success, every new twinge of excitement, every bit of joy that we feel we just might not deserve. We’re ashamed when we get a raise at work, hiding the news as to not upset those that may not have, we’re afraid to demand better treatment from our friendships, from our relationships, because we doubt that we’re actually worth it. We’re so buried in this guilt trap, that we actually convince ourselves subconsciously that being excited for our future plans, means we’re not appreciative of our present, that we’re bypassing all the joy and happiness of the now in exchange for fascination and wonder of something to come. I’m here to say, for all of the above, please, please, stop.
It’s ok, I say again, to understand the undeniable beauty of who you are, of the value you carry whether you see it or not. It’s ok to admit, out loud, that you’re deserving of a love that satisfies your soul, that compliments and complements the person you’ve spent so many years becoming. It’s ok to look forward and imagine a life in a tiny little cottage near some craggy sea and feel overwhelming excitement and even longing for it. It’s ok to enjoy time on your own without your spouse or children around, it doesn’t mean you love them any less, it means you value yourself and your own solitude too. It’s ok to whisper of what you want in the sheets, what you want to eat at the table, what you think the years to come should hold. It’s ok to be exactly what you are, and it’s ok to offer no explanations as to the suffering, the lessons, the peace, or the frenzy that led to this person that stands before those in your life.
Cherishing where we are, the situations we’re in, is a fundamental practice of finding happiness that is not contingent upon the external stimuli that flows in or out of our lives, I fully admit this. What I will say, however, is that it’s entirely natural to also look forward, to hope and wish and plan and scheme and wonder and by all means imagine a life that is colored exactly like the one you’ve always wanted. After all, what’s the point to how hard we work if all things will never change from how they are right this very now?
In short, stop blaming yourself or reducing yourself, stop judging yourself as a parent or friend, a spouse or partner, a human being for goodness sake. Allow yourself to shamelessly feel excited apprehension for whatever life is rounding the bend and cresting the horizon into your view. Feel it, embrace it, and offer no more apologies for doing this. We carry enough guilt, we always have, and I cannot help but wonder time and time again how much better off we’d all be, if we set it down.
Start now, set it down friends, and step forward unburdened and free. I’ll see you on the other side.
*Also, if I spoke in the podcast about needing, but not having, Intro music or a "theme song” please note, I recorded the audio before I figured out the theme music :) Sorry for the confusion.*
Shamelessly feel it,
excited apprehension
for the life to come.
Song of the Week
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For The Life To Come | 10.24.21