Rotting...

I did it!  Finally!  I am not a rotter, usually.  But for my birthday I decided I wanted to give it a whirl.  And I am proud to report that I can, in fact, do absolutely fucking nothing.  I spent an entire day:  reading, writing, napping, Netflixing, eating, bathing and resting.  It was magical. 

Who knew?

I can’t remember the last time I spent the day in front of a fire and just allowed the heat of the room to drift me off.  I think I took like 27 micro naps.  I just kept feeling my eyes get heavy reading and so I would lay my book down and drift away.  I was back in like ten minutes, but I did that several times so I am going to call that napping.  Which, if you know me, is something I can only do when grievously ill.

The weather supported my decision by raining off and on all day.  There was no TV at the place, instead a large sliding glass door to watch the weather do its thing.  It rained at the lower elevations but snowed up higher.  I got to just sit and watch it all day long.  I was graced with a beautiful rainbow on my birthday, just past the Buddha’s head.  It snowed, and rained and sunned.  It was spectacular.

I did have ideas that I would drive to June lake or Death Valley but the weather, heat from the fire and my general desire to rot won out in the end.  I was just happy to sit and be idle.  Felt like what I was supposed to be doing, the weather sealing the deal with the intermittent drizzles.

I wasn’t bored.  I wasn’t sad.  I was actually content.  To just be still and present.  I meditated for a long time, something I have really been struggling with lately.  Honestly, being still has not been easy for me, ever, but particularly over the past year or two.  And I know why.  When I am still I have to really allow how I am showing up, who I am to permeate.  I can’t run from it with all my busyness.  I have to own it and while I am not doing anything overtly toxic or hurtful or even wrong, it is still painful for me to sit with my larger defects which seem to descend upon me in moments of stillness.

But for the last two days, I just rotted on a comfy couch, in a beautiful place and allowed whatever came to come.  Mostly it was sublime, punctuated with a few moments of absolute joy and even fewer moments of consternation.  I found out, I can be still and rot away, at least for a little while.

Yet another skill I am developing as 2024 draws to a close.

It has been an interesting and lovely year.  I am grateful for it all.  I am happy to be in the place I am.  I am amazed by the progress I have made and heartened by all the people who have joined me on this journey called life.  I have no regrets.  Even the painfully hard lessons that almost always come in the form of men.  I am not regretting them either.  I am not sure why men seem to have to be my forever teachers, but they do.  They provide me access to parts of myself I do not seem to be able to reach all by myself.  I need the disappointment, hurt and momentary joys they provide to help me develop deeper understanding of all that has happened and how it alters the way I show up.

Turns out, rotting is quite a delight.  No longer terrified of what version of myself I might find if I allowed myself to slow down and be still.  I can be me, I can be present, I can be un-busy.  It is a good day indeed, when you have tamed all the demons in your head to the point where all of you can take 27 naps in front of a roaring fire, then get up, make a cup of tea and read for hours.  Feels like peace.  No longer tentative and fleeting.  But stable and ever-present.

And all of the rotting I did comes with a feeling of leveling up.  Sometimes the quest is to conquer law and business, sometimes parenting and dating, sometimes though the battles rage on silently within.  And being still with them is the greatest act of bravery and courage one can endure.  And when you do level up to brave another round inside your own mind, you just might find that all the battles you believed would be fought, have already been fought.  Have already been won.  And there is nothing else to do but lie in a heated pool outside and watch the snow fall silently on the mountainside.

I have a new appreciation for rotting...and a new goal, to do it again...still. 

Soon.