The initial horror and "oh my god, I have to fix this" wide-eyed, breathe-in-through-the-nose-and-hold-it emergency response has faded to a deep-exhalation, "this is sort of freeing" understanding.
So I don't have all those carefully organized organizations and individuals and recipes at the tips of my fingers anymore. So what? So I find them again. Or I find new ones. Or - and this ties in with the whole "pack my life into car or cabin" downsizing motif I seem to be working with these days - I do without. (Though in all honesty I will mourn those recipes). Still.
I left the job I loved more than any other. I did without.
I lost the relationship I loved for years. I did without.
I even gave up the giant, honkin', super-comfy California king memory foam mattress and shiny black headboard, and (speaking of black) the black mold-filled apartment that I'd also filled with friends and photos and at one point, about 500 pounds of apples, and you know what? I did without.
And in each case, in each instance of separation and letting go, I wound up better for it.
I stopped counseling those hard-up, hard-lived teenagers who hid their fears beneath violence and bravado, and found my way to a gentler, younger group of learners, fresh and eager and ready to smother me in hugs whenever I appeared.
I said goodbye to saving loved ones from themselves, and lo-and-behold, the universe presented me with a man who needs no saving; a man I would trust to save me, but who recognizes that I am my own savior and the hero of my own journey, and who is equally in balance and in joy.
And as for the bed.... well, a bed's a bed. And if I sleep a little less deeply on the hard earth or the wooden loft, at least I wake up that much closer to my Maker, to the myriad other creatures of shared existence, to the sounds and the clean air and the breaking dawn that lights my ready-to-traverse path.
So. Maybe I'm hiding my technical ineptitude behind lots of hippie, frou-frou, New-Age bullshit, and this is all an elaborate form of tree-hugging, minimalist denial. Or maybe those bookmarks just aren't worth fighting to find. Either way, they're gone... and once again, I'm fine, and moving on.
The Journey
-by Mary Oliver-
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.
