estimated reading time of today’s dispatch: 5 minutes
greetings, greetings to you, dear reader.
the weather is quickly turning to a new season here in the valley between the mountains. we’re seeing mornings with the sunrise lifting up above the fields of fog. the 30º temper tantrum of winter pushing its way into our daily routines. the last open water swim with the swim team may have been already swum. (weeks ago, but i’m still in denial). it is a phase of grief, of change, of watching and listening.
i’ve talked about the concept of little-g god before, especially having grown up in a southern methodist (read: very christian) tradition. it’s easier to step away from big-g God, because he feels declarative, definitive — as if god must look one way or be one thing. it’s a hard internal battle sometimes, because i was very into my religious beliefs as a child and quickly abandoned them once my grandfather passed.
this side of the coin is fun, because my little-g god is everything and anything.
it’s been so long that i’ve been in a church for a sunday service that when visiting my uncle in savannah in august, we passed a church, so filled to the brim with folks that seating arrangements had been made outside of the chapel. i assumed that so many folks must be there for a wedding or a funeral. why else would there be so many people gathered at a chapel? it took me another ten minutes to realize that a) it was sunday, b) we were in the south where God is law, and c) these folks were attending a church service.
my little-g god reminds me that there are things i cannot know and cannot see. that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. that i need people, and therefore, it is my job to live in the mess, to learn and to grow and to try to fill my life and myself up with what i need to feel happy and loved and whole. to let go of control.
the euphamisms of white, anglo-saxon protestantism remain in my lexicon.
which is like a middle-school play happening inside my head.
aside from saying “god bless” every time i find myself uncomfortable with vulnerability, one line that’s been surfacing over and over and over again is: “there but for the grace of god go i.”
i care less about the origins of the phrase than i do about why it seems to be on repeat for me.
in thinking about the trajectory of life, i’m more than aware of the fact that we are here, right now, in this exact place and moment, because of everything that has come before us and everything that will come after us.
and even though there are lists upon lists of things i wish had gone differently or been different in the moments before this one, i’m reminded this week that “there but for the grace of god go i.”
it’s a lesson in humility, in gratitude, in chance, in belief. in letting go of control.
i like to think that i, as a human, am experiencing questions and problems that no other human has. the quest for a singular experience, for a loneliness in the journey, points to the running joke of sara-as-a-child: that my first full sentence was “i do it mine self!”
i also like to think that as i grow older, i ask for help more, i learn quicker, i stand up faster, i hold the tender parts of myself closer.
joan didion put this anomaly of aging best when she wrote:
one of the mixed blessings [of your twenties] is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened before.
i am convinced most days that my loneliness is solitary, in that no one has ever experienced my loneliness before, that i don’t have folks in my community to reach out to, that there aren’t people who deeply understand what i’m going through.
this is a symptom of trauma and neglect and abuse from childhood — there is a belief that isolation is fundamental to understanding ourselves. that we must be the only person in the world, that there are no other people to reach out to, that we stand alone. again and again and again.
i hear my mother’s voice in my head telling me, often and increasingly on my worst days, that i am too much. i am too sensitive. i am too needy. i am too much. too much. too much.
in learning how to step into myself as an adult, to learn how to be the “sara” that feels loved and whole and focused on the now, that doesn’t need to be in control to be okay, i have also learned that i have to ask for what i need. that i have to take risks to do so. and that saying that something doesn’t work for me is the biggest way to honor my own boundaries. and doing so doesn’t make me too much or too sensitive or too needy.
and when i am considering a new relationship, whether friendship or otherwise, it comes down to the questions of: can we encounter this journey together? can we be vulnerable enough with each other? can we let each other in enough to grow together?
and almost most importantly: can i let go of control of what this experience is supposed to or should be like?
anaïs nin once wrote that
we do not grow absolutely, chronologically. we grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. we grow partially. we are relative. we are mature in one realm, childish in another. the past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. we are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”
i envisioned a potential future in which i say the hard truths about myself to those i love, i rip the bandaid off, i ask for help.
it’s easier to imagine myself being rejected than imagining myself telling a person i care for the hard parts about my story. about the things that i need support on.
i am a pro at feeling rejected. the younger parts of me remind me so.
i am a novice at feeling accepted. a real-life beginner.
i recall what simone weil once wrote, too, that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” and mary oliver went a step further to say that “attention is the beginning of devotion.”
as i give my attention and devotion to those i love, i am learning to accept them in return. and on days like today, i have to remind myself that there but for the grace of god go i.
onward,
sara