becoming ourselves is costly

Horses at Night

I woke up in a beautiful place with coffee that I was able to make in my Aeropress with my jet boil. The weather was temperate. I can’t help feeling kind of lucky these days. I was looking back at my Instagram feed from even close to 7 weeks ago and I don’t feel like I fully recognize that version of myself. I was still so full of fear. Not in the sense that I have somehow become fearless or anything like that. I just know the pain of losing and I think in the past that’s kept me from making positive decisions for myself.

I’ve watched myself start to come back to life. Like the fight has been rekindled in me after drifting down a river with a dazed expression on my face during a very long unpleasant float trip. I don’t know that I can articulate what all this has consisted of in a very succinct way. There is an opportunity cost with any endeavor. Time is something that we are engaging and grappling with no matter what decisions we make in this experience we are having.

I’ve been thinking about where I came from and the treasures that I have from my parents. Part of this is coming from a reflection on how life comes to an end and I won’t have them forever. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what’s wrong with me from my upbringing. I think lately I’ve been able to treasure the people my parents are now and how they were having to go through the experience of living just like me, except with a bunch of little dudes running around. I don’t have any kids and I’m not in a relationship and all I’m saying is six kids is a lot when you are also figuring yourself out. Not diminishing the process of unpacking my trauma or healing from toxic narratives or anything like that. It’s just that all the redacted versions don’t make the story feel more real. All that to say, I think becoming ourselves is costly, but giving up costs more. I think I’ve still got healing to do around people who have dramatically impacted the terrain of my life, (not just my parents). Richard Siken says, “You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?” I highly recommend the rest of the poem. I think it gets at what I’m trying to say here.

Life is weird and hard and I’ve spent a good portion of it trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing on this planet. I think I’m coming home though. I’ve been wrestling with parts of myself that are alive and want to be known. I’m finding my way back to God. That’s a big statement and it’s been a process to say the least. I spent the better part of my 20’s dismantling everything I was raised to believe and hoping to find a way to be liked and valued by people. It’s been disillusioning to say the least. I feel like reconstruction is much more difficult in a way than deconstruction/letting go of the whole thing. I’m not sure why, maybe because I’m so out of practice with things and I’ve just straight up seen some bullshit at this point, I haven’t searched out all that yet. Someone who’s faith journey I’ve followed from a distance introduced me to Justin McRoberts and I’ve been encouraged by some of what I’ve heard on his podcast about faith and becoming whole. I know that faith is a part of who I want to be for sure. It’s just in there. I think that’s why I explored most of the spiritual outlets I could find when I left Christianity originally. Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism, New Age ideas, Shamanism, various mystic ideas and so on. I think there’s a lot of wisdom to be gained from different perspectives. What has been will be again and all that.

I think there has been a place in me that has been wanting to express itself in the person that I’m becoming now and I haven’t known how to do it. I am still learning what it means to engage with the person of Jesus in a genuine way. I think that feels weird to say, just because I don’t feel like I belong in that space, whatever that is, or maybe because many of the things often associated with American Christianity feel so bad to me? Maybe because formal church spaces have mostly scared me in recent years and made me cringe and I’ve been out for so long. However, I’ve known some lovely people in the darkest part of my life who have shared their lives with me as they seek to know that love more and it’s definitely had an impact on me. People who have called out the goodness in me and encouraged me that my process is meaningful and part of the whole life thing. Beauty is a good reason to pursue that which brings me more alive. I’m not fully sure why I feel like sharing this here now. That’s okay though, because I do want to share and this is my blog. Thanks for reading. Take heart on the long road of becoming more fully yourself. Keep going. There’s more to find.