Yesterday, while eating a yummy tuna melt at a lovely place by my daughter’s school, I filled journal pages with yet another angsty piece about how I felt confused and lame and in the lull and the only way out was through, etc. etc. etc.
I thought my writing today would be about finishing that post.
Spending another day in the wallow of self-doubt. Frozen. Melancholy.
Until a little tiny light appeared inside of me.
And I remembered the truth.
I don’t have to.
I don’t have to wallow. I don’t have to stay in this thick fog of grey monocromaticness. I don’t have to keep plodding around and around the revolving door of the lull.
I can break the pattern.
The first way I’m breaking the pattern is to engage in a major self-care assignment today.
The second way I’m breaking the pattern is to remember.
Remember why.
Why I don’t just get a job. Why I don’t just run away. Why I don’t just give up and lay down and fall asleep forever.
Why am I doing all this anyway, living my life out loud, speaking my truth, pushing my boundaries, being myself 100% of the time?
What am I passionate about, right now?
What about this life really gets me off?
And the fact that it’s really hard for me to answer that question right now means it’s the exact question I need to answer. Immediately.
So here are a few things I love.
I love the Moment. The Moment someone wakes up to their own life, decides that from now until forever they will walk, run, fly away screaming from monotony, live every day from now on in the world of the real. Those emails, tweets, DMs, Facebook posts, blog comments when someone shares that the little words I write have somehow changed their life for the better. Fuck yeah.
I love the look on my daughter’s face. When she discovers something, when she is full of giving and joy, when she knows she’s helped someone or has made someone laugh, when she’s made a new friend or read a new word or climbed higher than she thought possible. I love when she comes up to hug me and I ask her why and she says, “nothing. I just love you, mommy.”
I love when happens when I pole dance. The second when I switch from using my brain to think my way through a dance, to just being in the flow, when I am completely in my body, directly connected to the music, such that when it’s over I have absolutely no idea what I was doing for those 3+ minutes, but I can feel the peace and joy it produces in my very being.
I love the sound of his voice. There is something about it that shifts me, immediately, into another state of being, into the feminine, into receiving and softness and beauty and ecstasy and balance … even though it also unbalances me, throws me off, shocks me, pushes me, challenges me, calls up my strength and power and inner recesses of truth and mystery.
I love dark chocolate. Hummus, grilled cheese sandwiches, guacamole, things that are deep fried, salty chips and double stuffed oreos.
I love the sand squishing in between my toes. The smell of freshly cut wood when I come around a corner, the cool breeze on my face smelling of salt and ocean and earth, the natural silence of the an empty path meandering through the woods tucked at the edge of the city.
I love the city. The unlimited chaos and choices and people and energy, bubbling over underneath as I watch from my 4th floor balcony or the top of the park waterfall or the end of the pier as I drink my large mocha and eat my everything bagel with all-the-fat cream cheese.
I love the airport. The transitional people moving from one life to the next wandering through the bar or standing confused at the top of the escalator, the quiet space of the undisturbed hotel room full of expectations and possibleness and peace, the exploration of a new city or a new beach or a new waterfront drive with no rules or maps or parameters.
What about you?
What do you love about this life?
What do you love about your business, these people, what you are doing on this earth?
Why are you doing this anyway?
What do you need to remember?
I'm Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, an attorney, mom, writer, and explorer.