Without a Net
In early June, I found myself at the beginning of summer, well, technically at the end of spring if you want to get picky. I was sitting in bed with my morning coffee. I’m thinking. It’s how I start my day. My college-age kids home for the summer, I was trying to figure out how I could best serve others (without judging, without becoming the director of a play) and serve myself (how to get what I need and not feel selfish.)
Searching for a short meditation, (Youtube. It has everything) I settled on Become Your Best Self*. It’s going along, I’m sipping coffee, repeating the mantras to myself. And then the words “being the boundless” floated out of my phone speaker and into my world. At first, I felt like I was falling. No net. Down. Down. Down. What if the boundaries I’d worked so hard to put in place, what if they were gone? I’d, I’d be … unsafe. That was how I felt.
Then, I reframed it. I started to think about how I show up for others and how I show up for myself. I thought about how I work on my writing. Carefully. Cautiously. Planning. I’m a planner, a list maker. And I thought, “What if I go forward with this? What if I allowed myself to flow? Yes. People are going to need me. I’m going to want to be present, help out when I can. I have written so much! And I’m sitting on it because I ask myself what is reasonable? I don’t want to do too much and overextend myself. I don’t want others to think, “Who does she think she is?” Why on earth do I care about that!
That day, I changed. I decided to put more energy into booking in-person author events, getting more of my work out. Not waiting and saying, “In 6 months, I’ll start to edit this one, submit that one.” Always worried that someone will need me. And they will. I can be flexible. Flow. I’m in a place right now where I have two kids in college, a new step grandchild, (even though I’m not old enough to have a grand child lol—denial) and my aging parents are now in a senior living facility, plus I’m working part time, and am the primary caretaker of two cats and a dog. And there’s menopause. I can make time to advocate for my own health, yes? And my husband. There’s a relationship to be nurtured.
Who decided that we (mostly women) have to be everything to everyone? And just like the boundaries, me making them and closing myself in tightly, the demands, it’s a voice in my head, really. I am doing this to myself. I can say yes. I can say no. I was on the phone the other day, booking a speaking engagement and the woman I was talking to said that someone (a male writer) told her “Men can achieve more as writers. Someone, a wife perhaps, brings them their coffee, then they go into their office, shut the door, and write. Women go to write, leaving the door cracked open in case anyone needs them.” It’s true but it’s changing, I think. I hope.
Today, I think of the word boundless and associate it with energy, with fire. My boundaries have soft edges. I keep waiting to get overwhelmed, find myself in a jam, or have a complete nervous breakdown; it hasn’t happened. Maybe this feeling, the allowing of me to be me, is what I’ve been looking for all along.
*Youtube channel, MindfulPeace.
