I wonder, sometimes, how much of what we write is influenced by our fear of being seen. How often do we tweak the timeline of things and our own interrogation of our inner motivations in order to paint a picture that other people will find more inspiring or relatable?
As though we have any ability to affect other people’s perception of things.
I wonder what would my life look like, what would my writing look like, if I truly didn’t care what other people thought of me.
What if I actually didn’t give a damn?
Even as I type those words I feel my shoulders dropping. I inhale a shaky breath and exhale a more steady one.
Is this all we really want, at the end of the day? To stop caring so much? To be fully ourselves without fear of rejection? Is it really that simple?
Part of this touching the elephant project, for me, is attempting to speak of what I am experiencing without being concerned over whether or not it makes sense. I want to let the words fall out of me without editing the heck out of them. As a writer, my biggest block is in my tendency to write a paragraph or two and then immediately re-read it. I see the squiggly red lines pointing their little fingers at me and I stop to fix my spelling errors before I’ve even finished my thought. And as I’m right-clicking those typos I will notice that I’ve used the same word twice in too quick of succession (gasp!) and I’ll rack my brain for a better word, and on and on it goes. God forbid I should just let the messy, brilliant thoughts in my head go tripping onto the page like a newborn giraffe, limbs akimbo, ungraceful as they come. What if I died mid-draft and someone saw how full of errors my inner world was? What then? Would my shame follow me into my grave? Would I be “found out”?
I wonder, is this how I conduct my life? Is this why I wash the dishes while I am cooking, why splatters on the cooktop bother me, why I check the mirror so often, rubbing at that awful line above my left eye that the pillow made one night a few weeks ago and now I am stuck with forever? Am I so accustomed to this pattern of editing and perfecting that I am forgetting how to live the messy, brilliant life in front of me? Can I appreciate my dinner when the kitchen is a mess? Will people like me, pillow marks and all?
If there is anything I have learned about the Divine, it is that I feel closest to it when I when I care the least about myself, which is incidentally when I am caring for myself the most.
Unsurprisingly, this almost always comes about when I am in deep surrender. When I lose myself entirely, if only for a moment. When I am laughing so hard with a loved one that I let out a loud snort and then laugh harder, or when I have cried myself into exhaustion and I feel some unnamable peace lay itself on my ravaged heart like a blanket. Perhaps these moments of ecstasy and grief are united by a total loss of control. Perhaps connection with God and others is most palpable when we release our grip on the notion that we ever had control over much of anything in the first place.
Maybe, when we stop checking ourselves, we are free to look outward and see that all the lines that we believe are separating us from the world are entirely imaginary - that where I end and you begin is as inconsequential as a line drawn on a map.
When I am looking at you like that, your opinion of me matters very little, because I’m far too caught up in how beautiful and absurd this whole set-up is. In those fleeting moments of clarity, I am surrendered to the fact that though we are just drops in the ocean, we also the whole freaking ocean. So why bother concerning ourselves over wrinkles and unedited first drafts and going to the grocery store with the bags under our eyes on full display? Aren’t they just proof that we aren’t afraid of showing up imperfectly? And isn’t that what we all want permission to do more of?
Today, I grant you permission to not care what anyone thinks. Try it on for a minute and see what your body has to say about it. I am guessing it will say, “Thank you, it’s about damn time.”
Thank you for this permission! Maybe too the liberation is to realize plans are unplanned often and remember to laugh at the absurd. Gallows humor or bust! This past week withall the zany news beyond the pale equally ridiculous and heartbreaking, I find myself saying, “this is out of my hands. I’m doing my best. There’s only one me so why not celebrate that?My art is a gift and a practice. Indeed to be free, sometimes we need to liberate ourselves from expectations of other’s opinions. We cannot be genuine if we are shape shifting to be accepted. I care about this messy humanity and am still learning. I have had fabulous teachers and I do respect their teachings and experiences as humans and artists. Keep being you, Kendall. Your voice is uniquely yours! TGIF. 💖