I read something the other day I really like - a writer paraphrasing D. H. Lawrence - some of us begin a long way from where we need to go and I'm not getting older, I'm getting closer...
The sense of a trajectory, even more a purpose, to keep going toward - what? - toward freedom, from all the things that block me, that keep me suffering, and freedom to be simply where I am. I know I am on that track, that one way to see my past is as a steady march toward connection to the deepest part of me, the place in which I'm grounded in self-acceptance, in confidence that no matter what I will be all right, grounded in gratitude for all that is and my place in it. I've never been more at ease in the world, welcoming and sure of my own welcome.
And yet...there is another track, the one most boisterous and demanding to be seen - the one that's all about the struggles of my everyday life - the practical - making money, cleaning the house, doing the things I say I'll do and think I want to do. The ongoing struggle with self-discipline, my default desire for isolation and simultaneous rejection of it - all the gettings and spendings that make up my day.
When things get the better of me, when depression blocks out everything and leaves me empty, passive, still...I remind myself there is another track, the one of deepening freedom. But to remind myself isn't to feel it; to say the words isn't to connect. Then I can only keep reminding myself, saying the words, until at last something shifts and I again feel purpose and hope.
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