As We Near The End Of Another Year.
/Originally posted December 01, 2015
I thought of something funny yesterday morning and I wanted to share it with someone. Or, rather, with someones - plural. For one hot second, I really missed Facebook. I missed the immediacy of how we used to relate over there, how I could post something quick and off the cuff and get right-away responses. That part of Facebook felt like a community. And yesterday, I missed it.
But instead of sitting with the missing, I tried to recreate the feeling. I took a Facebook-style-paragraph and pretended it was worthy of being a blog post and posted it here. Then I picked an unflattering photo of myself for Instagram and came up with a forced and I'm-trying-too-hard caption, just so I could talk about the post and, hopefully, redirect people to my site to read it.
Then I sat back and felt sick to my stomach.
Because remember my intuition? Remember how much I love her and how right-on she always is? I was ignoring her and I knew it. It's not a big deal, I rationalized. Plus, it's funny! It'll make people laugh! RELAX ALREADY, intuition.
I'm not sure why my intuition stays so patient with me, but she does. This time, she didn't even say anything. She just smiled. She knew that I knew and I knew that she knew and fuckity fuck fuck, Emily.
Because instead of posting something from a clean place - a place where my only intention is to share a piece of myself to which others might relate - I was posting from the place that looks like me looking for something. It wasn't about the content - it was about the response to the content. And that's where my ultra-sensitive self gets into trouble, when I ask clicks and likes and comments to validate me.
Le sigh.
And so I did that thing I've done many times before: I deleted. I deleted the Instagram photo. I took down the blog post (but not before saving it as a draft, because - if expanded upon - it'll be a hella funny actual blog post).
And, most importantly, I recommitted myself to being BFFs with my intuition, to holding her hand and letting her blindly guide me. I know she knows more than I do, and frankly, I'm a bit of an aimless mess when I don't let her steer the ship.
:::
I am so blessed to be here again, at the end of another year. Instead of looking back at 2015 and tracking the missteps or looking ahead to 2016 and making highfalutin plans full of ego and grandeur, I'm just sitting in the right-now-moment and looking around at what's in front of me.
Do you know what I see? A puzzle. It's the puzzle of my life. I see the edges. They're locked tightly together. There are no missing pieces. These crucial pieces of my life puzzle - the pieces that make it a cohesive thing - are solid, exactly where they're supposed to be. My marriage, my children, my home, my community - these are my edges and they are immovable.
And now, as I enter into real adulthood (real = the part where things have fallen apart in the most perfect ways and are coming back together in ways that surprise and delight and sometimes confuse me) I'm piecing together the middle of my puzzle. These are the less obvious parts. Does that white part go over here or over there? It sort of fits in there, but it's not quite right. Let's try it over here instead. Do I actually like being social, or was I doing that because I thought I should? What would it feel like to stay home more? How does it feel when I use the word 'blessed' instead of 'lucky'? And maybe it's time to start eating less pizza.
Piece by piece, my puzzle is taking shape. And when something fits - when a piece of my puzzle clicks into place in that unmistakable way, I'm starting to pay attention.
May the end of this year be gentle. May it be warm and softly lit and may we find space in our minds and in our schedules to feel a few of our puzzle's pieces click into place.
With a heart full of yes-ness,
*E