Big fucking question for a Friday!
Hell, it is a big question for any day.
I get very contemplative around my birthday. I seem to innately re-evaluate my life and how I am living it. Am I getting what I need? Who is responsible for that? Who is not? What changes can I make? What are the things happening in my life that I do not want to change at all?
But the most fundamental question I tend to ask every year is what do I need?
And the answer is always the same...I need what I have. I always think there is going to be a different answer. But each time I ask it, after all the thinking and doing and sometimes feeling, I end up in the same place...I have what I need. I always have. The only reason I don’t know this all the time is that I tend to think there is something I lack, that if added would make all of this living, better. And the truth that I return to every year is that nothing added to my life right now would make it better, it would just make it different.
Sure, there is the whole partner thing. Or at least a lover. Or perhaps more money. Or to turn back the clock 20 years. All three of these things have somewhat of a fable idea for me now. I can’t turn back the clock 20 years or even five minutes, money comes and money goes and the partner/lover ideas are becoming equally implausible. (I am laughing to myself in the dark - not a maniacal guffaw, but rather a cynical chuckle).
But not aging, more cash and a man would not necessarily make my life any better and I definitely don’t need any of It. I mean, life is coming along at a pretty good clip without being young or locking down a relationship or winning the lottery, so these things definitely fall into the category of want, not need.
And I want a lot of things. Most of them diametrically opposed to the other. I want freedom but I also want security. I want love but I want safety. I want all the things all at once, but know that things worthwhile in this world take time...lots and lots of time.
So as trite as it may sound, I have all that I need. And the wants are always going to be provided in an endless supply. That is just how it is with me, and humans. The wants always masquerade as needs and derail us from ever being truly happy.
So this year’s assessment lands a little differently. I am content with what I have, my needs are met and I am not wantonly wanting anything really. I find I do better when I stay in the day, do not allow myself to extrapolate outwards in an ever spiraling spiral. Stay in the day. It is so much easier to have what you need and want when you remain in this moment right here.
So on this year’s evaluation, I am drawing aces. I am good. I am fine. I have what I want and what I need. I am present for this life and its grand unfolding. Things really couldn’t be much better in the world of Erin.
And as I write that, I am pricked by the sharp poker of fear. I know that life, is always changing. There is nothing that can really be counted on except old age, sickness and death. We are all susceptible and shall all succumb eventually.
We all make a choice every day whether to wallow in the fear or step into the light of being right here, right now for whatever it is that is happening. Life, as we know it, occurs in the breaths, the moments, the living of each day. And none of us know, just how many days we shall be allotted.
So for this year I am good. I don’t need anything. I am content. I am happy. I am healthy (at least to my knowledge). I am spending a bit of time and money trying to beat back the hands of time but I don’t really have anything else to do so it doesn’t seem like a complete waste of time this tilting at the windmills of time and advancing age.
This year’s assessment is that I have never had it so good. Never. I feel like I am in my stride. I feel like this life I have right now is the life I have always wanted and likely had all along, but for my inability to appreciate it.
So it is a good day indeed when I can ask myself the question, “what do I need?” And answer with a resounding I need what I have right now, in this moment. There is nothing that is going to make it better. Nothing.
Feels like I won the lottery. And I guess I did because the cravings of more and not enough are fed and curbed this morning. I am good. My life is good. The people I love are good.
Sometimes inventory reveals a deep well of gratitude for all you have survived and lived and loved and lost. And you have done the work to assimilate that into your being and so you find yourself on a random Friday, a few days before you level up in age, and find that you are so fucking blessed that what you want is exactly what you have, right now in this moment.
And in response to this heady inventory, one can sit back, take a long pull of coffee and trust that it is moments like this that make life, your life, completely, totally worth living. I am glad I stayed. And I am glad I got off the superhighway of self destruction. I am glad I am here. I would have missed it, left to my own devices. I am so very glad I did not.
Again...still.
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