Everyone has a story. Everyone. Experiences, traumas, delights, memories, connections, associations, thoughts on things, values – all these things are common to each of us. We all have so much more in common than any of us have that is truly ‘unique’, don’t we? Most of the stuff that makes up our differences aren’t ‘differences in kind’ as much as ‘differences in degree’. We build our ideas of the bits and pieces of who we have been, what we have learned and done and experienced, and from there we take on a future of goals and targets and benchmarks and expectations, and in my case it became a present filled with the seemingly unachievable ‘pursuit of happiness’.
Today I’m simply one person, on a quiet Summer Solstice morning, cobbling a thought or two together and smiling because I have indeed made some progress toward one of those once seemingly unachievable goals. A fitness and weight loss milestone that has eluded me for some time, and today I looked at my feet and saw that I had passed it by as I turned 50, focused on other things. Yes, smiling, and yes it feels like an achievement. I’m happy about it, satisfied with it, but strangely silenced by this new perspective on it that I seem to have awakened with; it isn’t actually ‘important’ beyond the importance I give it myself. Huh. I feel good – that matters more than a number on a scale, and it makes sense that it does. Numbers are clean and clear and honest on their own, but easily used to mislead and persuade – I work with numbers, I know how that works. lol. Feeling good is more ephemeral, easily lost in the moment by distractions and OPD (Other People’s Drama), but far more important that a numerical goal.
That’s true with money, too. Oh, I won’t try to look you in the eye and tell you that money has no value, or that life in the culture I live in would be easy without it. There are uncountable numbers of people trying to get by on too little money, and the people who have the most of it often don’t seem very aware of the struggles of those that find it hard to come by. What I am saying is that it lacks the power over my heart and experience that it seems to have for some people. Dollars are not a performance measure for me personally, and income is not a criterion for my affection. Money is nothing more or less than the exchangeable form of my effort, at its simplest. The world gets ugly fast when the exchange isn’t actually fair, appropriate, or ‘value for value’.
Why mention money at all then? I mean, why let such a problematic subject come up at all? Well…’performance to goal’, ‘success’, ‘achievement’ are often things that are measured in dollars, rather than in moments of delight or great import. The world keeps its eye on the money, far more often than the things that really matter. An actor dies, and a retailer ‘honors his memory’ by pushing a product. Parents often reward a child’s progress with money. Corporate whores struggle to prove their ‘worth’ – to get more money.
Everyone has goals. We’ve built a world where many of us have an expectation of a ‘pay day’ if we achieve them. How many of my own every day moments of disappointment are because over time a hoped for outcome, a simple goal, became a feeling of entitlement about ‘the pay day’ of getting there, instead of being about getting there, itself?
I wonder if I am making sense. That’s what comes of writing over my first cup of coffee in the morning. lol.
It’s a quiet Friday morning. I am enjoying it in solitude. I am spending time with me today. I am not the woman I was at 20, or at 48. I am someone new to myself, and it bears examining gently, tenderly, and with great compassion for pain that has been, and great hope for what is ahead. Today I am taking time for that – as much time as I need. I am inclined to paint this weekend, too. I have something I want to say about turning 50, about reaching goals, about ‘finding my soul’…but I don’t think I can say it in words… and doubt that ‘the world’ would listen, anyway…or hear me. Some things are not easily shared in words, I suppose.
I look around as I finish this, and realize that we’ve nearly gotten ‘all moved in’ now…the house is lovely, tidy, quiet. The morning unfolds softly. I feel great contentment and satisfaction in this moment, and I observe the feeling happily, and without expectations. It is Friday. It is mine. I am enjoying it.
The time is…now.
Evening Light 