Notes on being kind to myself
It’s the final week of February. Who can believe it? Only the clock and the calendar can make us hold this apparent fact in our minds. I’m struggling because this month has been overwhelmed by waves of grieving, both personal and collective in a way that insists on my presence. We drove my mother home after a funeral the other day, and I lamented, “I just wish this season would end. The dying and the grieving, it’s all too much.” And I’m writing this having attended a service following the departure of yet another dear soul.
But, this blog entry isn’t about all that: I just noticed I hadn’t shared anything in this space this month. All this after my great hope that this year would see my writing become more and more consistent. Grief has muddled that clarity, but at the same time, it made me hold close this reality. Grief, if given space to work, helps us make a meaningful distinction between the things that can be carried into a new season and the things that must be laid to rest. I have lost time. Now what?
The dawning of another Monday had me thinking if I tried really hard, I could churn out at least two entries, just so I could say I did. As I thought it over, I began to feel the faint rumblings of urgency churning in my belly. The plan was going wrong before it could go wrong. When I start getting anxious about writing, I procrastinate. I imagine that the words will flow more smoothly from me when my heart is still. But, my heart never stills quite to my satisfaction and so much time passes. Today, I must write with my palpitations punctuating my sentences.
Andrea Gibson shared a story on their social media and one statement they made as part of that narrative was, “What better way to show love to someone or something than to tell it the truth?” I held this statement and it let me breathe a little more easily again. The truth of this month is that the work beneath the surface and beyond the purview of social media stories has held my energy and attention in a way that I have chosen not to write blog entries this month, until now.
Which brings us to the idea of making up for lost time: I think it’s a myth. And like any good myth, I believe we look to this one when we need a comforting hand to hold as we do what needs to be done. Making up for lost time is what we tell ourselves we are doing when, in reality, we are just making the most of the time we haven’t lost. It comforts us to as we grieve through the reality that time isn’t something that can be made up for once it’s lost.
There was a time when the self-loathing voice in my head was quite audacious. It felt as if it had the right to interpret all truth in a way that would deliver the most hurt to my sensitive heart. Thus, in a season before now, hearing that time cannot be made up for once it’s lost would carry such painful finality with it that I would throw up my hands in defeat and cease any meaningful pursuit of my dreams. I would abandon my goals and curl up in the despair and self-pity of failure. But, now I know, when you are kind to yourself, failure is a friend, a motivator forward, a voice telling you that there are other ways that things can work.
Accepting what hasn’t happened helps us engage with what can happen and what is happening. But acceptance requires serenity, if the popular prayer is to be believed. And perhaps, serenity requires the presence to acknowledge that we haven’t shown up how we would have liked to and the fact that life and time still beckon us forward, asking if we could forgive their faults and our own, and try again.
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