Louie L’Amour once wrote, “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”
I have come to that time. I have believed everything finished. I have been unable to rise up from my knees, unable to catch my breath, unable to open my eyes. I have pressed my hands against the dirt and prayed, begged, for it to give way, to collapse beneath me and suck me in whole, to bury me soundly into oblivion. Anything to make this hurting stop.
But moments like that, they pass. The human brain isn’t built to withstand prolonged agony. There’s a threshold, and I never really knew it existed before because I used to bail waaaaay before I reached it. I never realized or knew or believed that if I just stayed inside the horror of the moment long enough, just held on, it would slip away. It would end. I would win that round. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t come right back around again (and again, and again) when I’m least expecting it and drop me with a single stab, but I don’t run from it anymore. I let it come, I let it pierce me, and I let it leave. And each time, I’m a little bit better for it. Each time, I accept my part in it a little bit more. I start to accept the truth for what it is, not for what I wish it was.
And in return for my humility I get these glimpses. Glimpses of something lovely, something unknown, something rich with magic. I look around this new space where I am now, startle at the unfamiliar noises in the night,so foreign to the new girl growing in me…. I note these moments (without self-pity, without blame, without anger, without judgment, just for what they are) and then suddenly I get the gift of a flash, a vision of something I don’t yet know how to explain, and I smile.
There’s a sweet and unexpected freedom in knowing I know nothing, that I`m not in control, that maybe what I thought was real and good and vital never really was because I don’t actually know how real and good and vital a thing can be. Except I do know.
Because amidst all this unfamiliar I cling to the things that are–the spines of my favorite books, the spines of my best girlfriends bent over in laughter, my own spine against a bathtub wall hot with steam and tears. And in those flashes I get a glimpse of what life-giving really means, and it’s only a glimpse because maybe I`m not quite there yet, not quite ready, but I’ve seen and felt enough to start to believe it’s probably true, what they say, what I’ve secretly rolled my eyes at all these years, what I’ve pitied in other alone people when I’ve heard it, this, that what really matters more than anything else, where the love really lies, the place and person that’s dependable and constant and real and good and vital, is Me. Me!!!.
And, as David Whyte writes, “anything and anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”
This song is on my running playlist. I save it for last, now, just as I’m rounding the part of the new trail where the sun breaks through the tree canopy and the gravel mouth opens to spit me back out onto the pavement. I’m going to keep on running, keep listening, keep watching, keep feeling, keep holding onto spines, until I believe.
I have come to that time. I have believed everything finished. I have been unable to rise up from my knees, unable to catch my breath, unable to open my eyes. I have pressed my hands against the dirt and prayed, begged, for it to give way, to collapse beneath me and suck me in whole, to bury me soundly into oblivion. Anything to make this hurting stop.
But moments like that, they pass. The human brain isn’t built to withstand prolonged agony. There’s a threshold, and I never really knew it existed before because I used to bail waaaaay before I reached it. I never realized or knew or believed that if I just stayed inside the horror of the moment long enough, just held on, it would slip away. It would end. I would win that round. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t come right back around again (and again, and again) when I’m least expecting it and drop me with a single stab, but I don’t run from it anymore. I let it come, I let it pierce me, and I let it leave. And each time, I’m a little bit better for it. Each time, I accept my part in it a little bit more. I start to accept the truth for what it is, not for what I wish it was.
And in return for my humility I get these glimpses. Glimpses of something lovely, something unknown, something rich with magic. I look around this new space where I am now, startle at the unfamiliar noises in the night,so foreign to the new girl growing in me…. I note these moments (without self-pity, without blame, without anger, without judgment, just for what they are) and then suddenly I get the gift of a flash, a vision of something I don’t yet know how to explain, and I smile.
There’s a sweet and unexpected freedom in knowing I know nothing, that I`m not in control, that maybe what I thought was real and good and vital never really was because I don’t actually know how real and good and vital a thing can be. Except I do know.
Because amidst all this unfamiliar I cling to the things that are–the spines of my favorite books, the spines of my best girlfriends bent over in laughter, my own spine against a bathtub wall hot with steam and tears. And in those flashes I get a glimpse of what life-giving really means, and it’s only a glimpse because maybe I`m not quite there yet, not quite ready, but I’ve seen and felt enough to start to believe it’s probably true, what they say, what I’ve secretly rolled my eyes at all these years, what I’ve pitied in other alone people when I’ve heard it, this, that what really matters more than anything else, where the love really lies, the place and person that’s dependable and constant and real and good and vital, is Me. Me!!!.
And, as David Whyte writes, “anything and anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”
This song is on my running playlist. I save it for last, now, just as I’m rounding the part of the new trail where the sun breaks through the tree canopy and the gravel mouth opens to spit me back out onto the pavement. I’m going to keep on running, keep listening, keep watching, keep feeling, keep holding onto spines, until I believe.
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