by tashmcgill | Dec 1, 2015 | Community, Culture & Ideas, Friendship, Relationships
A year ago and a week ago, I passed under this bridge in a traffic jam, stuck again on Interstate 65. This piece of highway is a constant in my life as I travel between places and people I know.
I was stuck metaphorically too, stuck in a dream of a dream. The bridge is just a symbol, a lot of water has passed under this bridge since then. 372 days that see me further from one dream but closer to another. I don’t know what that dream is, but it must be a dream because it’s not yet real.
I think I must have grown up some but there’s a post-it note stuck to my computer screen that says “Everything I ever let go of had claw marks in it”, and it’s certainly true for me. I can feel the tingling in my fingertips. How much I want to hold to something, for something to be as permanent or certain as this bridge. I want to held on to; to be permanent and certain myself.
I’ve been learning you can’t hold on to what’s not real or permanent. You can’t hold on to what’s not holding you. Lorem Ipsum has no permanent home, just like a pipiwhararoa it flies from nest to nest looking for a place to call its own. No one holds on to Lorem Ipsum either.
Lorem Ipsum.
You probably recognize the phrase. If you’ve ever worked in design, printing, had to produce marketing materials or a website there’s a good chance you’ve seen this text. It’s ancient Latin from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book on the theory of ethics was popular with emerging humanist thinkers during the Renaissance so as printing technology emerged during this era, it’s no surprise that a collection of paragraphs from this text was used as dummy text to review typefaces.
Placeholder text is designed to look close enough to the real thing that it becomes invisible to the viewer. Originally so that a printer and publisher might agree the layout of the text or the choice of typeface on a page. Now, Lorem Ipsum is often used to fill out the design frames and suggest where text is required in marketing collateral and digital publishing.
A placeholder is used to fill space but leave no lasting impression. It looks and feels real but carries no meaning. It is yet it does not endure. Lorem Ipsum has survived for 5 centuries now only ever being useful for a moment, to fill the space before it is replaced.
I am not Lorem Ipsum, neither are you.
It’s a shame that some things you only learn after the fact. You learn the rock is slippery as soon as your foot starts sliding. You realise you’ve been Lorem Ipsum when someone starts seeing straight past you. You realise you’ve had all the good intentions in the world, but your friendship has carried no meaning, your words have floated off like feathers in the sky. When Lorem Ipsum is replaced with words you attribute meaning to – you no longer need the Lorem Ipsum.
I love words. And these words meant something to Cicero, to the great Renaissance philosophers and ethicists. Sentences constructed with intention just like I have been made with a meaning greater than the sum of my syllables – Lorem Ipsum is the real thing, not a dream. You have forgotten that I once, had meaning too.
Lorem Ipsum in the Debris.
I do believe some relationships are seasonal. And especially friendship can be deceptive, appearing mutual when both parties have different expectations and agendas. My shared stories and experiences create a narrative that we all own, my stories shared become your own and vice versa. We give meaning to each other but only if we mean it.
But no person should ever be Lorem Ipsum for another. We must be able to look each other in the eye and keep our promises – I see you, you can see me. If we treat each other like placeholders til something better comes along – we strip meaning from beauty and destroy our shared narratives. We destroy each other and ourselves.
Yes, we do this from time to time – we fill our world with those who are available to us although they do not always fulfil us. We allow ourselves to feel useful and meaningful. Of course, we do this because loneliness is a hungry wolf at the door. But once we start to feed the wolf on hollow bread, we cannot keep him from the door. Resist. Resist. Commit yourself to the meaning of those you share your stories with. And therefore choose carefully whom you love.
There is a shallow darkness in anyone that can live in such a way, to not know the ancient, wise, tenacious gift they hold in the palm of their hand. It implies an unknowing of themselves, because authenticity demands authenticity.
The storm change comes along and swept up in the river swell you become the debris on the bank. The difference between a seasonal transition in relationships and being Lorem Ipsum, is acknowledgement of the season change, thank you and goodbye. Without it, gasping for air and wondering how you missed the signs, you shirk off your sinking expectations and swim for shore.
Of course, you can choose not to become the debris. We all get caught out from time to time; not realising that while we laid out our words in perfect syntax, our Latin went unrecognised by the other. For being fooled into thinking my narrative was true, I have learned even more what authenticity looks like. I’ve realised even though people can hurt you by treating you like a spacefiller – I can free myself in a minute by letting go.
Choose not to hold on to people who don’t want to hold you back. Workplace comraderie, friendship on any scale, lovers, distant family – choose not to hold on to anything but the present moment and those who are willing to hold you. Even then, choose wisely from those who would hold your precious meaning in their hands. Letting go can feel like losing something until you remember the best thing you had in that friendship was what you made it, with your heart, your compassion, your love and soul. Even your hopes and expectations of the other were a good kind of dream. So you walk away losing nothing, because you still have yourself. You are the carrier of your meaning.
You have your purpose, becoming clearer in the days and by dream at night, a new old kind of dream. Instead of fighting the current below the bridge, you are now given the chance to cross it; a change in every direction – first up, then East instead of South and with a much larger view to the world. Remember your meaning.
You are a gift to the world, often unopened by many who drift by you but still valuable. An ancient treasure hidden in a field, a pearl inside a gnarly shell, a fragment of beauty that does not fade, an eternal force more precious than rubies. Your meaning is not taken from you by those who do not comprehend you. Perhaps they have not imagined you yet but still you are.
Cicero’s Lorem Ipsum (a fragment).
“But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?”
“On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.”
by tashmcgill | Nov 10, 2015 | Culture & Ideas
I think they should tell you, coming out of the womb, that nothing will turn out like you expect. To avoid expectations at all cost. Expectations are the most dangerous indulgence of the human existence. In every facet of our lives, expectations have the ability to cripple, blind and curtail us. Expectations box us in and limit our horizons. There is a difference between hopefulness and expectation. Expectation is mostly commonly associated with a specific outcome. We expect the way things will go or ought to go for us.
We grow up surrounded by suggestion of what is normal, what is common, what is expected of us. We’re instructed in the principles of good behaviour and reprimanded based on how we meet others’ expectations of us. We create expectations of others.
Our greatest hurts will come from our unmet expectations; our relationships will break down when we cannot communicate, re-create or do away with our expectations of each other. Expectations become prescriptions.
Expectations prohibit creativity and innovation because they force us into pre-established paths and ways of doing things. Expectations push us towards norms which perpetuate cycles. And life goes on and on in this way.
Until something breaks. Until expectations fail to be met and you must hit the reset button.
I always thought I’d seen too many friends hit quarter and mid-life crises purely for the sake of some overwrought expectations; ideas about who and how they should be. So I made a plan; to not over-engineer my game plan. I simply thought ‘strategize for the half you’re in, see where you get to and then plan again.’
Can you see it there? Hidden in my plan to avoid creating expectations for myself, was an expectation. An expectation that there would be a second half for me. At some point, I’d find my half-time or a natural reset button.
I thought it would be family; in the traditional sense of a partner creating a natural segue into the second half. I have never been able to conceive of what my life might be with a partner. I am selfish but not selfish enough to assume that I could create a life or a dream big enough for two or two plus two – however many kids might come along. So I resisted making the mistake of trying to find someone who merely fit into the plan I had already made. I only ever planned a couple of years in advance, always thinking I would meet someone significant and we’d design the rest together.
I like the idea of co-creation; a mutually agreed collaboration of the future. A reset button for the second half of the game.
Now I’m at the halfway point – in time, at least. If I live as long again as what I’ve lived to date – that will be a long life. Perhaps too long. Not because I’m old, but really because I don’t want to live lonely too long. I have enough tolerance for platonic and familial love for another 20 years or so. Beyond that, I’m not convinced. So I face designing the second half now. Determining what strategies will reap the richest, deepest rewards and leave a legacy worth holding on to for someone, before I die.
The trouble with expectations is that they hide in plain sight until you trip on them. You can be doing just fine until you hit the one pothole you’ve missed every other time and you find yourself flying through the air, headfirst over your handlebars. You have to be grateful for it; each time you have to pick yourself up from one of those rough landings; it’s one more freedom to afford yourself. One more prescription you are no longer bound to. These prescriptions do not determine whether you were a failure or a success, as if those concepts have any bearing on what it means to be a human being. These prescriptions are social controls. Who cares if you never see the Eiffel Tower if you never really had any desire to go to France in the first place?
Freedom from prescription is essential. Examine every corner of your life for the hidden expectations (your own or others) that you are trying to meet. From how you raise your kids or manage your time or even what you share or do not share with the world.
As I think about the next chapter of my life; I don’t want to spend a minute of my energy or spirit in meeting expectations or prescriptions. I don’t want to risk not living every minute of the second half. I’m in brand new territory, undreamed-of country. It’s a time for invention and creativity. I want to live in such a way that I am fully alive and engaged with my greatest strengths. Devoting as much as I have into things that matter most for my legacy, not the legacy others would write or choose for me. I think as a woman, I’ve been even more susceptible to believing I have to take these expectations supposed on me by others and figure out how to make them work.
I don’t really care about money beyond what I need to live and spend time with those I love. I don’t want to spend a lifetime chasing a pay packet for something I don’t believe it; despite the expectations of what someone of my age and skill should earn. I want to continue to do all the things that take my fancy and come across my path. Naturally, I want the freedom to ask any question of spirituality, science or philosophy and mostly; I want permission to never be done – until my last breath. If I am incomplete til that moment, I will be delighted to know I left the world still learning.
What does the second half of the game look like? Less chasing the ball and much more running with it. If there is anything I’ve learned from the first half of the game; it’s that anything can happen. You’re just more prone to miss those opportunities if you’re still stuck on how you expected to turn out.
So what if your body isn’t how you thought it would be or your career isn’t what you planned. Who cares if you didn’t buy a house before property prices went up. A thousand tiny thoughts we have each day that push our lives into boxes we never intentionally set out to live in – that’s the claustrophic nature of expectations. Be free to not be Instagrammable or Pinterestable. Be free not to be Paleo or vegetarian. Be free to give things up or not – but do nothing because it’s expected of you unless you have set your own mind to it also. There are plenty of things in this category. Exercise for starters. Sex for seconds. Hospitality for thirds. Caring for your spirit and faith. Figure out to make these things a healthy part of your game plan.
For me, the second half of the game is freedom. The freedom to know myself and not just the shallow self others have tried to make me. Freedom from all the definitions that have been put against my name. Freedom to be my True Self. It feels almost as if I’ve spent the first half of my life learning just enough to really get me started – but it’s already half-time. I’ve spent the last moments of the first half dismantling the playbook I thought I had to follow. The good news is, I think you get twice, if not three times as much out of the second half.
by tashmcgill | Nov 6, 2015 | Culture & Ideas
Dear Self.
It’s no wonder you’ve waited every year for birthday magic to appear. When the sky lights up the night before, fireworks soaring over the horizon, it’s no surprise your heart beats with expectation, you dare to hope for a little wonder in the morning.
Year after year, the clock ticks in its own strange rhythm. Perfectly on time, but imperfectly cadenced. A syncopation that never quite lands on the beat. You turn another page, another year older.
In November every year, you give thanks and then count down til Christmas and the New Year – always wondering, hoping, praying that this year will be better than the last. In the coming year, you might be more yourself, find the peace that eludes you, the love you long for.
As if life is a jigsaw puzzle you’re stuck on, that you cannot complete without the final pieces – you’re hoping each year to find the cornerstones that will help it all make sense. Every year around November, when the change and the countdown to another chance at your 12 months begins – you consider yourself once more.
Self, you are more of you than you were 12 months ago.
When this year broke into dawn, you were still thinking of yourself as Incomplete but now you know you’re just Unfinished. There is more to come. There are many more ‘and thens’ to follow and you are unafraid. No longer trapped in fear of ‘The End’, you know there will always be an ‘And Then’.
You are embracing and becoming your True Self – learning to speak what you want and believe out loud. You could probably do with a lesson or two in not letting all those desires and emotions walk across your face. They walk like a herd of elephants, unstoppable. But your heart on your sleeve has felt like finally being able to breathe instead of forcing a poker face when you want to cry.
You read an article on the train that said it showed greater strength of character to cry than it did to merely comply with misery and the words felt like rain on parched earth. For the first time you felt no shame at having a feeling. When every tear you’ve cried in every year past has felt like the mark of failure, this year’s tears have been the current pulling you towards hope.
Earlier, you felt adrift – cast off from shore by trusted confidantes. This year, you’ve known betrayal and abandonment that echoed the fear you knew as a child but you stand, stronger because you realise the power of knowing.
Woman, unfinished but not incomplete – in knowing what is true and what is not you are able to embrace yourself and unshackle yourself from the burdens that anchored you to shore in unsafe harbours.
Adrift on the ocean is only a place for fear if you do not trust the wind and the wave.
Breathe deep. Go to the top of your mountain and watch the sun and the sea. Breathe.
Go and bathe in the river, until you emerge baptised again in Self and Spirit.
Be one with the land of your birth, the sea and the sky and you will learn you have nothing to fear from the wind or the wave.
This time last year, you counted some as friends that you no longer rely on. The unimaginable grief you have weathered with so few words. To imagine again what is lost to you, yet you carry on to smile for those who show no sign of understanding how they have wounded you. You have learned to not hold tightly by letting go.
You have learned again, the wonder and power of your own voice. That voice that never faltered in confidence when you were young. It only shook as you grew older and realised the great weight of air you had to project your own words through. You have learned that even when voiceless you found the courage to speak and therefore now, grown and strong – I’m begging you to just open your lips; the stamina and strength of your early defeat will carry you to triumph.
Not a triumph of acclaim, but a quiet inner conquering – to know that the False Self – so frail, insecure, afraid, stoic but also undone is now buried in the dust and dirt of the Valley. Only the True Self remains.
You learned there were some secrets for keeping and you buried them in a field; where only treasure-seekers will find them.
In the morning, remember that you are free from the shackles of pre-defined identity even though you remember the weight of the chains on your hands and feet.
You grieved your unborn children and your unknown lovers. Walked through failing at the tests you ought to have sailed past and continued walking. Head held high and making eye contact, stripping shame of its power in each step. You reconciled the more you grow in wisdom; the quicker you find your loneliness. But that is a comforting thought, because the truth you have always longed for is more evident now than ever. Your compass points true North.
You chased hope, lost it and kept walking anyway. You have wandered down the dark alleys and enjoyed the danger there.
You are more remarkable than anyone knows – precisely because of how much you let them see, when there is still an ocean beneath the surface of the sea.
In the dark and the secret, you have let others rest in your comfort, you have laughed and let others feel powerful in your weakness. You have shared vulnerability – you are gloriously wretched and righteous in perfect paradox.
The fireworks are slowing down. The night is about to reach into tomorrow. Remarkable woman, you are not a year older tomorrow, you are a year closer.
A year closer to a good death, preceded by an above-average life. The sum of day; not the minutes or the billable hours but the vast expanse of your ideas; a word spoken here and there. A year closer to finished, whatever that looks like. Another year of self-discovery and generosity to come. You are not undone or incomplete: despite the creases, wrinkles and the age of you.
You are Unfinished because you know what you do not know. Some of us are Done and still Incomplete; they have ceased to grow but you know, that roots must push out until they find water. A woman must turn herself to the sun if she longs for the light. She must find water when thirsty. She must go to the mountain-top and bury what is finished in the dust of the valley.
Tomorrow, you will not wake in the arms of a lover or be wrapped in magic as the movies tell it. Bouquets of flowers will not appear but small and beautiful encounters will be treasured as they unfold. As any day begins unfinished, you will begin again. The magic will be in you, even if you are the only one who knows. You will wake baptised again.
Not another year older, but another year closer. To the woman unfinished, there is more to come.
by tashmcgill | Oct 14, 2015 | Culture & Ideas
People talk a lot these days about writing your own story. Owning your chapters of failure, growth, success and moving on. But in it all there’s one question that a writer is prone to ask, therefore I assume most people are asking. If we are writing our own stories.. how do you write an ending? What do you say and how do you face the night that comes? How do you approach the dawn?
It might be the ending of a chapter or the end of an act. Maybe it’s the very end of the story arc, where one character departs the scene for good.. how do you avoid the mistakes that writers make? How do you avoid falling into the trap of believing life in the fairytale version, instead of how things truly are? How we write is often how we live, so there is much to learn about how we face the seachanges of life from how we might tell our stories.
You can’t write it too happy.
Too happy means it’s not real. Too shallow, too fast, too tidy and it won’t ring true. It’s too contrived to tidy every loose and wrap up every moment with joy and glee. We’ve all seen those movies and read those dime-store novels that float away into nothingness at the end. There are winners and losers in life; big or little loss. An ending must always come with some grief, otherwise we’re not really saying goodbye. No matter how ready, how ripe, how meaningful the closing of one story is, there
In life, there are loose ties left behind and there is messiness left behind in the wake of the happiest of endings. It’s this messiness, the contrasting shadow across happiness that proves the mirth of an ending. We know the truth of things by the way they contrast with the ‘other’. So you can’t expect for any ending to end too happily. Let yourself off the hook. Some stories have messy endings, some things are irrepairable. It’s in the leaving of things undone, we know we are finished. A little scar to leave behind is crucial to believe that it was real. Happiness is coloured with sadness, always.
You can’t write it too sad.
Life is joy and sadness. When all things are equal, the human experience demands a silver lining in every circumstance. You do not have permission to write a scenario without some glimmer of goodness. It does not have to be hope but it must be metered gratitude; a finding of the light in the midst of darkness. Humanity demands optimism; even a fragment of it. Heroes are born from characters that choose to do what they can with what they have. That is the essence of writing light into a story. Some fragment of goodness, hauled from the worst wreckage of life.
To overcome, to survive, to keep on playing requires this ruthless devotion to optimism. Beyond youth, optimism is not inherent. Optimism and hope is a feat of human engineering; willing the mind and spirit to play along. You must write an ending, you may not allow it to happen to you. Without our interference, without our part to play – endings are too dark. They jar with the human consciousness and the creating nature we are born into; to always make new, to birth again, recreating.
So you have but one choice when writing an ending.
And then.
Nothing ends. Time is the cadence of the story you write and time continues on. One chapter ends and you must simply write another. Your chapters and authorship finish and your memory passes to another. Whether your lover, your child, your successor – when your authorship is done, that writer will have to say ‘and then’. There is always a next, until the Big Finish.
My lover left me. And then, I got up the next day. Or, and then I slept for four months straight.
Every ending has the capacity to be defined by the ‘Next’. Captured in the ‘and then’.
If we are cowardly, we will try to tidy our loose ends and let things end tidily. If we are foolish, we believe others feel the weight of our failures and tragedy as we do.. we cannot image the ‘and then’. But someone, somewhere will always be responsible for it. Picking up whatever ever is left and making the best of it.
And that is the only ending we can ever write for ourselves.
No matter what trauma or delight has come your way – success or tragedy; you must wake up in the morning and begin with ‘and then’.
There is always something else to come. It may not come easy. you may have to define it, fight for it or simply let it unfold.. but until your dying breath for every goodbye and every ending, you must respond with ‘and then’.
What will you do tomorrow when your work is done? What will you do tomorrow when you are let go from your job or your lover leaves you or you are simply bored with what you have. Whenever you reach an impasse or an end, you simply have permission to say ‘and then’. Begin a new chapter, a new story. And how will you begin it? It begins with ‘and then’. Wherever you go, encourage people to remember that when your time is done they too, should simply say ‘and then’. We are all waiting to become the ‘and then’.
For the writers.
This is also true for you. Your characters must reflect the 3D nuance of what it is to be human. We feel it all at once. Joy and tragedy. True characters will reflect that. Embrace the ‘and then’. Your heroes will not be struck down by tragedy but they may be ruined by it for a time. It’s human, real. It’s true.
by tashmcgill | Oct 7, 2015 | Culture & Ideas
I can hardly breathe when she’s in the room. I’m overwhelmed with a sense of envy and admiration for this woman.
She is intoxicating, infuriating, complex and yet astonishingly simple. A walking paradox. She is loved – loved so hard, and by so many. I’m envious of how I imagine she is loved.
Perhaps because I’m the only one who really knows her, where to trace lines of invisible ache, where to find hidden tattoos – I love her and loathe her. I’m compelled by her presence but it’s a bad romance – one I need to leave but can’t walk away from.
She is I, yet not I.
She is only the projection of the woman I’d like to be; the False Self magnified in perfection. She is just who I imagined I would become instead of who I am. When I see glimpses of her in others; I’m filled with love and contempt at once. She’s good, so good. She’s less selfish than I am, better and smarter than I am.
People invite her to dinner and are proud to have her in their company. They listen to the words that fall from her lips, longing for one of her smiles or her embrace. They find her wise and life-giving and the work of her hands bring richness and joy to their lives. She is content with herself, utterly at home in her skin and her own sense of self-assurance invites people into comfort with themselves.
I’m the jealous type – envious of the woman I always wanted to be. Envious of the woman some people think I am. I’m envious because I know the truth. I’m jealous of her because when she is present I am all too aware of my own failings. I am not the best at what I do. I am not selfless in the way she is, I am not as innately good as she is, I am a shadow in comparison to her.
She is phenomenal. Most importantly, she has earned the goodwill of those whom I admire. I am average. I have not earned it. I know the truth of my failings. I know the difference between my aspirations and my reality.
My true self is not as I thought I was. I thought I was funnier, smarter, stronger, more desirable and ultimately – I thought I was better than I am.
The True Self.
It’s easy to change the projection of ourselves we share with the world. A change of hair colour or clothing style, even the application of a little lipstick here and there – it’s a little smoke and mirrors magic we use to sway opinion, to create a little power here and there.
But living well is only found in authenticity. We can only grow what’s true, what’s grafted to the vine – that which has true life. So despite our best intentions, you can’t ‘fake it til you make it’ when it comes to yourself. You can only embrace the truth and grow from there, no matter how uncomfortable or unpleasant or disappointing it may be.
It is not the end. I am not finished becoming. But my true self is not as I thought I was. I thought I was funnier, smarter, stronger, more desirable and ultimately – I thought I was better than I am. My starting point is not what I thought it was.
I live with jealousy and envy of the woman I thought I would become and wanted to be. In embracing my True Self, I have to let her go but I find she lives on in my imagination day after day. She follows me into conversations and meetings, on adventures and into real life.
That’s when I realise – She is the shadow and I am the True Self. I breathe, she does not. She is static – only ever in two dimensions because she is not true, therefore she cannot grow. She is not real nor authentic. I am the living one. I turn my envy to anticipation of who this True Self, average woman will become. I have not imagined her yet and therefore I desire to meet her.
by tashmcgill | Aug 19, 2015 | Culture & Ideas, Spirituality
On the corner of my street there’s a street lamp shining bright on the intersection of suburban roads. There’s barely a car parked in sight; from the end of my driveway I can count just three. But there under the spotlight, is the corner dairy (a 7-Eleven of sorts), the bus stop and an Indian take-out store. In which the lights are blazing and the door wide open despite being 12 degrees celcius. ‘Well, they’re optimistic,’ I think to myself, my inner monologue dripping with cyncism.
It’s 9.00pm on a Tuesday night and I’m crawling inside to finish a fraction of what needed to get done today and the remnants of a to-do list going back to Friday 2 weeks ago. I’m feeling deflated and empty; I have been for days actually. Everything feels like a fight in which I keep getting ‘No’ for an answer and while I’m not losing – not yet defeated, I’m desperate for a ‘Yes’. For a win, for a step closer to the dream.
I’m close to throwing a tantrum in the face of the Universe. A grown-up one, with big words and everything.
I go out to dinner, to movies, for a wine or three, parties for kids and friends come for dinner and all of it’s good for a moment, until I’m back left with myself. I’d just like a ceasefire in the warzone I’m in, a truce where the Red Cross comes storming in to simply bandage the wounds and nurse me along a little. I’m so hungry for kindness and connection I’m almost like a child who wants to be indulged simply – because I do. I’m close to throwing a tantrum in the face of the Universe. A grown-up one, with big words and everything.
Not for anything trivial like love or biology or even the politics of sexuality and refugees, although I can make a pretty good case there. No, bigger things – like ‘why is meaning so hard to grasp and so much of life filled with meaninglessness’ and ‘why do we live with a sense of displacement and crave belonging’?
I’m almost convinced I could make a winning case to demand answers but the biggest battle I’m fighting is Me. Fighting to let go, to hold on, to give love and stay soft-hearted when I’d rather put up defensive offense. Battling to submit to other people’s methods, to collaborate when I love independence, fighting not to let go of my love of excellence and fighting the urge to say many times over, I call ‘bullshit’.
(I’m sorely tempted to call bullshit on inspirational social media posts, on mindfulness and yoga mantras, especially on religious politics and the politics of religion. I want to remind everyone that you’re just an entertainer on Facebook for an audience you determine and that the strong, independent woman is as much of a Unicorn as winning can be without someone having to lose.)
The biggest battle I’m fighting is Me. To find peace in the midst of ambition, a little give in a world of take.
Most of this could be solved by hibernating for a weekend or three, resting in good company that doesn’t mind taking care of me a little. Strong, capable, independent as I am – I need a little reminder of what it’s like to play. To laugh. To feel good. To feel alive. A gentle reminder that work isn’t everything, even when it seems like it’s the only thing. I probably just need some good sex in good company, with a laugh or two.
And all this probably has nothing to do with the Indian take-out store on the corner.
Except the flashing neon ‘OPEN’ sign now flashes in the front window and sometime in the last week they’ve added twinkling fairy lights. Where the door used to remain closed it’s open to the street and there’s even a sign on the curb of the road. There’s a bus that stops across the road once every 80mins or so, and a tinny house on the opposite corner which is probably mutually beneficial. I’m not sure who they’re hoping will turn up. I’ve lived here five years looking at that same corner, same tinny house, same Indian store and all of sudden they’ve opened the door. The hopeful audacity of it. Open doors, defying belief and daring the neighbourhood to place an order. That if you try, they will come. If you stay open and welcoming, people will turn around and look after you. If you fight just a little more, ‘No’ might turn to ‘Yes’.
It’s easy to turn my cynicism audacious, to make the bullshit calls loud and clear. To turn up the volume on everything but hope. It’s harder to choose a hopeful audacity. A plucky bleeding courage that keeps on playing anyway. A hopeful audacity that compells me to put on my unicorn panties and rise again tomorrow. To keep on battling for a yes.
A year ago and a week ago, I passed under this bridge in a traffic jam, stuck again on Interstate 65. This piece of highway is a constant in my life as I travel between places and people I know.