These are early days, still. This fact, if nothing else, seems clear.
We are “social distancing” and this is wise. We are trying to shop generously by leaving something on the shelves for our neighbor. Netflix hasn’t crashed (yet), which would undoubtedly send the quarantined over the edge.
We are witnessing the changing trajectory of our world in real time.
Last week a friend asked me to attend a sobriety meeting with her. As it turned out, she had to bring a friend or family member to this one as part of the program’s exit process. We don’t talk often enough, and this friend of mine rarely asks for help, so I said yes right away.
I have an absurd confession. Ready for it? Okay, here goes:
I do not consider myself a perfectionist because I have never created anything perfect.
See, I told you it was absurd. My lifelong battle with perfectionism and disappointment and hiding and isolation summed up in one blurt.
I am reading a memoir right now with that all-too-familiar blurb on the front: “Fearless” the blurber cries. I didn’t notice this until after I had taken the book home, begun it, and learned a little bit about what was inside. And I can tell you that if the book was truly fearless, I would have zero interest in it.
Today I want to talk about those people who seem to do whatever they want. You probably have one or two of them kicking around your life. And I’m not referring to trust fund kids, retirees with a variety of fulfilling hobbies, or babies. (Babies obviously always do what they want—in their pants or in the grocery store, restaurant, etc.)
“So, The Smurf starts with a bounce,” Heather says, dropping into her knees. A loose, mini-squat kind of motion. “It’s really just a bounce.”
It feels like a play today. Whistle, or like a shard of the future has lodged itself in my shoulder.
~ Lisa Olstein, To the Left of Boom
Things are shaking again. Moving. Maybe it’s the season? Are you feeling like this? Like ripping it up—tearing through patterns, and behaviors, and expectations, and comfortable illusions, and the soft, gummy gauze of memory?
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they open a door. I was contemplating this the other day in the women’s restroom as I stole a short, desperate break from work. (Real estate offices are total mayhem in the spring.)
The topic of permission came to me recently courtesy of my ex-husband, who has a genius for texting me what has been on my mind before my mind can process it. We all have our gifts. One of his, it seems, is of mental midwife.
The bubble has burst, as I knew it would. Said it would, actually, eight days after arriving. “I feel so wonderful,” I texted a dear friend. “I’m a little worried this bubble can’t hold.” Dear Friend responded with assorted breeds of happy-face emojis and applauding hands. Assured me that the bubble didn’t need to burst at all. Life could simply be like this from here on out. That the winds of forever-ever-after-loveliness would only e’er more gloss my cheeks and kiss the backs of my receptive hands.