Privileged
A while back, I had a dream about an acquaintance who has a baseline of financial security I envy. In the dream, a wise older friend says, "You have to be kind to ______. She's never had what you have."
I would have argued the point, but in the way that dreams can suddenly illuminate, I knew exactly what she meant.
She meant what so many of you have demonstrated these past few days in your comments and emails: that I am blessed with an abundance of people who believe in me. It is the ultimate trust fund, and I have drawn on it heavily this week.
It isn't possible for me address every single expression of faith, every vote of confidence, every affirmation you have given. But to every one of you who opened your hearts, withheld your judgement, and shared your experience, strength and hope, thank you.
I have been down the road more travelled. It was safe. It was comfortable. It was okay.
My unhappiness was so deep, it was a secret, even from me.
If your chosen path is not the same as mine, I don't judge it. No way is without hardship of some kind. All roads fork many times over. We all second-guess our choices sometimes. Or, we all should.
In my anxiety, I have reverted to a vocabulary of scarcity: "enough," and "okay." Numbing words.
The root of each is fear. Their antonym is hope.
We have a plan. We have choices. We have so much to be grateful for.
It's not going to be okay.
It's going to be what it has always been:
extraordinary.
In lieu of handwritten notes of thanks, I send you to this poem. Have a wonderful weekend, "idle and blessed!"
I would have argued the point, but in the way that dreams can suddenly illuminate, I knew exactly what she meant.
She meant what so many of you have demonstrated these past few days in your comments and emails: that I am blessed with an abundance of people who believe in me. It is the ultimate trust fund, and I have drawn on it heavily this week.
It isn't possible for me address every single expression of faith, every vote of confidence, every affirmation you have given. But to every one of you who opened your hearts, withheld your judgement, and shared your experience, strength and hope, thank you.
I have been down the road more travelled. It was safe. It was comfortable. It was okay.
My unhappiness was so deep, it was a secret, even from me.
If your chosen path is not the same as mine, I don't judge it. No way is without hardship of some kind. All roads fork many times over. We all second-guess our choices sometimes. Or, we all should.
In my anxiety, I have reverted to a vocabulary of scarcity: "enough," and "okay." Numbing words.
The root of each is fear. Their antonym is hope.
We have a plan. We have choices. We have so much to be grateful for.
It's not going to be okay.
It's going to be what it has always been:
extraordinary.
In lieu of handwritten notes of thanks, I send you to this poem. Have a wonderful weekend, "idle and blessed!"
Labels: lack and plenty, soul and spirit
—Kyran, 10:05 AM
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4 Comments:
you are such an amazing gift, kyran!
extraordinary, indeed ;-)
looking forward to what comes next...
love and blessing to you & yours.
xo
kirsten
early on, i used to write about growing up with very little, and in a house of brown skinned people, and moving from hand-me-down-house to car, from arkansas to texas, and i am jealous that i could not write this during those times. my wife and i get in shameless arguments about which of us had it worse, she in a communist country standing in bread lines, to which i reply, at least your bread was free! and then she admonishes me for leaving out the part about the government cheese. she would have killed for it. it is hard nowadays for me to write about higher and lower points on a ladder, because our own lies flat on its back, underneath the porch. i suppose it's there if we need it. although every time i reach the top, there's not much more for me to do other than clean the gutter. i suppose the view is nice. awful long fall, though.
unfolding her wings, the butterfly stretches and yawns to the morning sky..........
Kryan, I like what you say here about "enough" being rooted in fear. There's a line in a song by Ani DiFranco that I thought of when I read your post:
and just when you think that you've got enough
enough grows
and everywhere that you go in life
enough knows
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