The Invitation

I am packing for a week away for work and I can’t find any decent socks. American Express keeps calling, but I don’t have any spare change to throw at the blinking, red balance and I can’t bring myself to answer the phone. There is orthodontic paraphernalia all over every bathroom, and the kids are eating ice cream pops for breakfast to soothe sore mouths full of new metal that is supposed to train their jaws to move in healthier ways. For now, they are just lisping and crying.

I buried a squirrel with my own yellow shovel in my neighbor’s backyard so my dog wouldn’t dig it up again. I have taken 27 books out of the library in the last two weeks and returned all 27 unread because my calendar has been full of Zoom meetings and last minute edits and panicked Teams messages.

I have sold jewelry and beloved books again to make ends meet. I have been outside of my body for days now, floating.

I have been wrestling with the idea that I am not God, and I am not pleased with the obvious answer. I have been struggling with facing the fact that there are things I cannot hustle my way out of and fix. I have been facing what it means to let it go and discovered that I am not a let-go-er. I am not even a walk-away-for-a-while-and-come-back-er.

I am an:

I-will-fix-this-with-my-own-bare-hands-if-I-have-to-sell-my-body-er.

I am an:

I-will-not-leave-this-dead-horse-until-it-is-dust-er.

I am an:

There-is-nothing-I-can’t-solve-If-I-only-work-hard-enough-er.

I am Boxer, abiding my time at Animal Farm, oblivious to my glue factory trajectory.

It has not served me.

I also hate this phrase. Remnants of my own evangelical childhood and deep disdain for anything that might appear weak or selfish or both. Serving myself has never been the point. There was a meme about Millennials circulating. Something to the effect of how only they could turn selfishness and laziness into “self-care”. I could have written it myself. It’s already written in my bones. The bones that are now giving out. The head that is now floating somewhere above, looking down.

Is selfishness ever the appropriate response?

How does one navigate the care of oneself, really?

I have been in therapy for over a year and I hate that I return to square one, over and over.

While I have stepped outside of the organized religion that defined my life for most of it, I still do believe in some tenets. Like how we all belong to each other. Need each other. How we need to feel deeply the responsibility and love of our neighbors and act and love and vote and advocate for their wellbeing accordingly. It has always been easy to do, at the exclusion of myself. But to include myself inside of my own care, means I have to leave my God mask at home.

And I am not ready to admit that I cannot (by sheer force of will and more than a few cappuccinos) rectify the wrongs of the universe.

That sounds selfish, indeed.

The system I clung to because of God, in some aspects, made me believe I was God. The walking away only highlighted how much I am not, in fact, in control of anything. And how deeply I am in need of my own care.

How awful it still feels to admit that.

I have never believed in figuring shit out before writing it down. It is only in this process that I’m able to read my own words back to myself, and see them for what they are. For better or worse, I hope my own process is an invitation- to your own work, to inside other people’s worlds for a moment-for you to know that quite literally none of us know what we’re doing.

Not a single one.

Here are some things that have buoyed me this week. Perhaps they’ll help you.

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Things That Have Nourished Me

• I returned every self-help, non-fiction, reference text to the library and checked out only sweepingly magical, fictional narratives. If they’re good, I’ll recommend them in the next installation. Just simply alleviating the pressure of having to be productive and learn and focusing instead on what brings joy has been healing.

• I began Jim Henson’s documentary, “Idea Man” and already know it’s going to be lovely. Fred Rodgers is next. I am finding myself drawn to people who allow(ed) their creativity in the arts and love for humanity to drive their trajectory. I wish I were bold enough to do the same.

• I’ve been eating cottage cheese in the morning with berries, pumpkin seeds, ground flax seeds, and cinnamon. In this odd, hormonal era of my 40s I am trying whatever I can to balance what was probably never balanced to begin with. It’s been a nice and comforting ritual not to think about what to eat, and riding the hope that perhaps maybe it’s also good for me.

• Generally, food and the preparation of it for my people take up a decent amount of brain space. Since both girls are on a soft food diet and I am preparing to be away for a week, food prep is starkly absent from my mental load. It’s been quite amazing to realize the time I have when it’s removed.

I am not God. ( I promise, I really have always known that, deep down). I still would voluntarily take up the responsibility for everything gone awry in the world if it would let me. I am learning what letting go looks like for me, and how to carry on with the care of others with the inclusion of myself. I am learning priority was never meant to be pluralized. I am learning the mask-on obnoxious cliche is unfortunately accurate. I am learning how to sit in the suck of needing things, and having to say it aloud like the ordinary mortal I am. I am learning how to accept the invitation to be human.

I am still unsure how to RSVP.

Let’s figure it out together, shall we?