Today can be a perfect starting place, a portal; it can be a magical, even mystical, point of departure.
Where to, you might ask?
This very moment can be a doorway, gateway, pathway… even a membrane. The metaphors all serve. For me it’s a line. I think of it as a boundary line we can step over and cross, quite on purpose, to get to a different country. This imaginary-yet-real boundary line is apparent, once you look for it. It is simple (though maybe not easy) to cross. No passport needed.
Whatever we call it, it can lead to a very happy destination.
So then, what waits for us on the other side of the boundary line, in this new country? Quite assuredly, I will tell you, it is the opportunity to reside—as a native, of a vivid, enchanting, wildly alive, and beautiful new land—in a self-made place of our choosing… only limited by our imagination and our willingness to explore.
This new territory can become home, where we can allow to flourish whatever it may be, what is waiting to happen, in our yearning.
Whatever that is, it will be SO completely worth it: Make art when we thought we were without talent or creativity. Go hiking because “that’s what I always wanted to do.” Dance every day. Learn all the major constellations. Become a philanthropist or an activist. Take up bird-watching with a friend or partner, as an excellent excuse to spend days together in gorgeous, wild places, communing with the animals. Pretty much all these call to me!
What are your yearnings?
There are so many more examples, as in my case, recently: Give up a habit that no longer serves, like social drinking. Find a new and kindred tribe, such as others who love to learn and grow, too. Fall in love with a “lost art” from an earlier time in life, like photography. Go deeper within, like discovering a spiritual depth and greater meaning, the everyday sacred, in life. And—ha! Get over inhibitions; go put on a bathing suit for the first time in ten years, with abandon, and swim, just for the joy of it!
“Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.”
–Anne Lamott
Oh—PLEASE!, I beg myself, (and anyone else who’s willing to listen!): DO NOT wake up one ordinary day in ten or fifteen years and be living a sad, missing-out, regretful, rear-view perspective of reality. Hollow and echoing of might-have-been’s. “NO!” to that, and “YES!” to Life, with a capital “L.”
For us all:
Say no to the comfortable, old reasons why not and to thoughts about others’ judgments, “If I do that, they’ll think______________.” Get a little uncomfortable and say yes to Life.
Say no to doubt and fear, while still allowing them to coexist with the yearnings and new plans. There’s room for the doubt and fear, and sometimes they have real purpose. The trick is, not letting them be the boss.
Say yes to “what wants to happen,” as Martha Beck invites us!
This is my best recommendation for Life well-lived, if I may offer it.
I don’t know about you, but I’m taking myself up on my own advice; I’m there now, further exploring my new adopted country. Every day, I plan to choose to step over the imaginary boundary line, from the old and into the new land, all over again.
Will you come with me?
[My thanks: With gratitude and respect for the beautiful wisdom teachings of Martha Beck, Elizabeth Gilbert, Anne Lamott, Nona Jordan, and Sarah Seidelmann. Thank you, Amy Bernier, for modeling this adventurous, creative, courageous way of living. Thank you, Becky Baker, for your early influence (beginning when we were 16), for your encouragement to say yes to Life at a time when it all seemed pretty dark, and for your lifelong friendship.]
