Skip to main content

Grade-less




Emotionally leaden would be a good descriptive for me during the past few weeks.  Two days ago I heard myself bragging.  Bragging.  I'm not usually a braggart.  I will sometimes put on a bit of confident moxy but brag…hardly.  I was bragging about all sorts of nonsense…I was a fashion consultant in San Francisco, I am super smart and graduated with top A's in all my classes, I'm going to get a PhD, I got this honor or that honor, yada yada yada.  Rather than gag (which was my first response), I turned around to face myself with loving compassion.  That is when I saw it clearly: a sadness, a longing, a need for validation.
As a kid, my house wasn't heavy on validation.  I found validation in SCHOOL.  I could go to school and know the drill.  I could ace any class I walked into and I was a people pleaser to boot so teachers liked me.  I was starving for information BUT equally hungry for the stars on my paper, the 100% in the top right corner, the smiley face, the A+, the feeling of "I did it".  I don't remember ever, in all my life, breathing in those small victories.
There was always another A to strive for.
Nor was anyone ever impressed by my report cards, or honor rolls, or awards.  I didn't attend award ceremonies, imagining myself walking to accept the diploma, award, or whatever without a single clap of applause.  I sought accomplishment, not for how it might be perceived by others, but like a man dying of thirst seeks water.
I approached spirituality with this same fervor.  Enlightenment... the ever elusive A.
Now that grad school is over and there are no more accolades or academic conversations, no more A+'s in the top right corner, I felt again that empty place of longing to belong.
Life is interesting isn't it.
There is no getting around it, only going through it.
There are no A's.  And if you don't pause for the small victories and be your own applause, you will go through life hungry for a food the world can not give.
Today I am just this life looking out through these eyes, grade-less, and today that is enough.
That is enough.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FORGET ABOUT ‘HEALING’

Some days,  you just have to forget  about ‘healing’. You have to stop trying to feel better, trying to overcome your emotional wounds, or trying to be anywhere other than where you are. You have to embrace the day as it is. And you have to give yourself the most sacred permission of all: To shatter.  To break.  To be an ugly mess. To lean into a place of utter humility and powerlessness in yourself. To cry out to the heavens, “I can’t do this!” To admit utter defeat  in the loss of the life  you had imagined. To crumble to the ground, lonely and hopeless and profoundly ruined. To want to die, even. And there, in the darkest places, in the blackness of the underworld, you may begin to rediscover... life.  And learn to love the beginnings. A sacred reboot: A single breath.  The way the sun warms your face. The sound of a tiny bird singing in the tree over there. The raw simplicity of a single moment of human existence. Hell has been transmuted, thr...
Post a Comment
Read more

a story recently shared by a friend

 Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that island would sink, so all constructed boats and left. Except for Love. Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment. When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help. Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said, "Richness, can you take me with you?" Richness answered, "No, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you." Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. "Vanity, please help me!" "I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered. Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, let me go with you." "Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself...
7 comments
Read more

He is no longer here

Another day has begun.  I have lit my candles and incense.  Sat in silence. Worked up a sweat at the gym.  Eaten breakfast.  Straightened house.  Answered mail and dropped my man off at the airport. It is eight in the morning and the world stirs with wakefulness.  The sun climbs in the sky.  The birds sing.  The squirrels chip and chur in tree branches.  A dog barks.  And I look with dull eyes at the long day ahead, contemplating a single phrase, "My father is dead." What strange words. My father is dead. The man has been leaving for as long as I can remember and yet his death robs the wind from my lungs.  My chest throbs and throat tightens.  He isn't coming back. My mom and dad had slipped out of one another's lives before I'd barely begun mine.  Two weekends a month my brothers and I stood on a saggy porch, bags packed, eager for our hero to arrive in his old blue Ford to pick us up.  We vibrated with hope...
5 comments
Read more