I have
discovered that I am often in a contemplative frame of beingness. I’m not always certain what the basis for my
state of mind may be, but suspect the passing of another holiday without family
and friends gathered to share their love and abundance has had a profound
impact on how I’ve chosen to live. Since
I spend my time alone, I may be feeling the lack of family and friends, but I
believe this awareness is not steeped in the concept of my lacking anything
since the way I now live was a conscious – perhaps by default; perhaps (and I’d
prefer this to be my truth since I purposely chose to live as I now do), that
it was critical for me to have so much time to spend in reflection so that I
could more deeply understand myself.
A couple of years ago, I became entranced by the idea of never spending another moment alone. Although I was not ‘looking for’ a companion, when I met someone with whom I thought I would share the remainder of my life, I discovered that I looked forward to sharing the love I felt for him with him in a very special way each and every day, but, most especially, during the holidays.
However, in time, as I grew to understand that I had fallen in love with only an illusion and not the reality of the man, I longed to be living a life of solitude.
In time, solitude again became my reality; I have discovered I am far happier than when I tried living a life that was not compatible with my sensibilities. I tried – I truly believe I had tried -- but my life was not to be as I imagined it would, trying to accept another into my world; it was simply not to be. I am now grateful to be living as I am.
However, on
Thanksgiving in 2012, I was profoundly
aware that others were spending their day with family and friends and I was
not. Thursday evening, I watched a
television show where the storyline pivoted around an infant being cared for by
two men who will never (in all likelihood) know the ongoing joys of fatherhood
any more than I shall ever experience what it is to be a mother.
I felt my lack
of not knowing motherhood all the more when I viewed the tenderness and love
the two men so naturally showed the child.
By the end of the program, however, realizing that if the child stayed
with them, this would not be good for the child, they surrendered the child to
its grandparents.
But, as I lie in
bed the Friday evening, following Thanksgiving, I was grateful. I am no longer feeling shamed for simply
being who I am; I was – and am -- grateful that I did not – and do not -- feel
‘inadequate’ or ‘not enough.’ I am,
quite simply, grateful to be who I have become – even though I may continue to
stumble and falter in how I choose to move forward.
I may not be
living anyone else’s dream; I may not even be living the life I had once
dreamed I’d be living. Yet, I feel calm
about how I’m living and that is something I have wanted to feel my entire
adulthood. My longing to feel peaceful
and calm began when I was a girl of seven or eight.
For a very long
time, I did not understand why some of us seem unable to establish long-term,
meaningful relationships while others apparently slid into relationships as
easily as they accepted living with others in their lives.
I no longer
dwell on these questions, but, rather, simply accept my life as it is – even
with the excruciating pain I often feel in my legs. I figure that one day, perhaps, I’ll even
understand why this physical pain has become a part of my daily existence.
For today? I am simply relieved to be alive without
anyone misleading me into believing truths that are not truths, but only
misrepresentations of some fanciful imagination. It may be true that nobody loves me, but I
finally know what it feels like to love myself.
Thursday
evening, as I was massaging oil and lotion into my legs to ease my pain, I
discovered that I was talking tenderly to myself -- as though I was caring for
another. That I am finally caring for
myself – albeit many, many, many years too late – my awareness that I am now
taking myself and my needs seriously is something that fills my heart with the
kind of love I have seldom known – certainly not from the love of another who
has ever shared living with me.
No – instead, I
now find that I give myself the kind of love I would ordinarily think of sharing
with another. And, so I smile a most tender
smile as I think of the end of my life having become a pivotal turning
point. My attitude about loving myself
is a decided transformation from my once believing that I did not deserve to
breathe other people’s air -- to now believing that the air within my small
world must be free of the kinds of emotional pollutants that primarily cause
heartache and disappointment.
A little while
ago, I read a life-affirming Buddhist lesson about detachment and rising above
what often strangles and/or stifles us emotionally from feeling totally free so
that we do not experience calmness at the very core of our being. It was a lesson about following the Way by
becoming the way. And, so, my life
continues to unfold.
Perhaps it is
unfolding differently than I’d anticipated (or imagined) several years
ago. However, it is only now that I have
begun to feel stronger, more resilient, more alive and more focused than I have
felt throughout the entirety of my life.
This is the feeling I have waited a lifetime to experience.
Perhaps it is
slowly becoming my fundamental truth that I am gently, quietly slipping into
alignment with my own and life’s compatibilities. Now THIS
awareness -- this reality and inevitability -- cause me to smile from that
deepest place within my soul. This life
I have chosen feels quite simply amazing to me.
Finding my truest self by sitting within the silence of my being fills
me with grace and gratitude that I survived the often stormy seas of my
emotions that so often caused such unnecessary struggles and confusion.
Now that I no
longer bear the burden of my past mistakes and missteps as ultimately defining
my unworthiness, I have discovered that living within the consciousness of
loving compassion and forgiveness – of myself and others -- that life provides me
with all that I could have ever hoped for . . . calm acceptance of what is, for me,
simply amazing in its simplicity.
Stephanie
Doty
Simply
Amazing
March
1, 2014
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