To paraphrase a song lyric I love- and felt like my topic this week and mostly this weekend. That I am the world in its variability, options, things I know and I understand and that I do not know and I do not understand, that I am more than the roles I played and I play - friend, daughter, lover, colleague, more than the labels I applied or apply for me, or that I like or not. And that is acceptance. The world/ or life is not good or bad, we give it that meaning and that interpretation, and in many ways neither are we. Just a mixture of qualities, labels, behaviors, tendencies, learned reactions that shift and adapt to our environment some more successful than others. We were, we are and we can be life in its continuous dance and creations -some more successful than others and only in some time and moment in space. And that feels like freedom. Because maybe and only maybe I don't have to be anything- neither good or repenting, meanwhile the world goes on. And adapt to my environment while also choosing it- when adapting is far too exhausting, and finding the balance there. Between what I am willing to compromise and change and what not, beyond shame, fear and anger. Between I belong and I belong to me. Between loyalty and courage to do things different. Between new beginnings that can feel like sad endings.
You don’t have to be broke, you don’t have to struggle or take care of everybody. Be willing to do a new thing in a new way and sometimes you have to piss people off in the process—people will hold you to your limitations, what they believe to be true.
I Vanzant