What A Mess

We’re all a mess. Some of us may be better at hiding it than others, but trust me on this one, even the most buttoned up of us is a mess. Some days we’re a little less of a mess, and on others, a full-blown, all out, will-I-ever-get-my-shit-together mess.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

Being a mess is hard enough as it is without making things even worse by wishing I was, it/we/they/life/things were different.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

What we need, more than anything, is to be able to be a mess without someone try to fix us, coax us out of it, convince us that we’re not, or point out the silver lining.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

I’m not saying that we should wallow in it, hang on to it, or blame someone else for it. But let’s not pretend that we’re not a mess when we actually are. Come to think of it, we shouldn’t be too surprised at the messiness of it all. I mean, it started out that way when we were born, what with the labor pains, pushing, gushing, bloody, gooey mess and all. We forget that before the doctor or midwife or nurse or whoever wrapped us up in a clean blanket and put a cute little beanie on our pointy little head, we were a slippery little mess. A miraculous one to be sure, but a mess nonetheless. In other words, life is messy. Always has been, always will be. So maybe, just maybe, to be a mess is simply another way of saying that we are alive.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

Day 5 without a shower in the Wallowa Mountains

Word Of The Day: ALIVE 2.0

ALIVE

While alive can mean simply not being dead, when it comes to crafting a meaningful life, that’s not saying much. Lungs can continue to fill and hearts can go on beating long after a soul has moved on to wherever souls move on. In the same way, we can continue existing on the planet without truly being alive.

To be alive is to be alert to the all that life brings our way. It isn’t always easy or comfortable, but then I don’t think it is meant to be. To be alive is to actively engage with the truth, no matter how painful, scary, or inconvenient. We can even feel at our most alive when we have survived a challenge we weren’t sure we could manage—like crossing the finish line of a marathon, after a last chemo treatment, holding our newborn after hours of labor, or finally confronting our hidden fears and wounds for the first time.

To be alive is to be aware. It is to be interested in the world around us, and to continue to expand and grow even as our bodies diminish. To be alive means to follow the breadcrumb trail of our curiosity over the next rise in the trail, and the next and the next and the next. To be alive is to never cease exploring, wondering, and searching.

To be alive is to be teeming with whatever it is that enlivens us to the point that we can’t contain it. It is to be filled to overflowing with the certainty that our lives matter, despite any evidence to the contrary. So certain that we can’t help but show up for our life and say yes to its invitation. Over, and over, and over, until it’s all over.

(If you are just joining me now on the trail that is 2020, and the list of words that will travel with me to inspire and inform my steps, you can check out earlier posts on this topic below.)

Word of the Day: ALIVE

Word Of The Day: ALIVE

When I came up with the list of words on which to hang my 2020 hat and turned it into a word cloud, I noticed that three of the words appeared larger than any of the others.

ALIVE

ENERGIZED

TRUSTING

As it turns out, it’s because those were the only three words that appeared on my list twice. Apparently they are meant to be especially useful this year as I continue to put my daily efforts into crafting a meaningful life. Which, for the record, is why I suspect we are all here in the first place.

Over the next few weeks I’ll focus on a word of the day drawn from that list, taking a deeper dive into what it means, and how it can inform, influence, and inspire me in meaningful and purposeful ways.

ALIVE

Not only did alive show up twice, it was also the first word that appeared on my list. That can’t be an accident. Finding myself in my mid-sixties it is clear that I’ve crested the hill that is my life. Death is closer than my arrival on the planet, and I find myself making friends with that truth. Not in a fearful, wringing-my-hands-sort of way, or a morbid, oh-well sort of way, but in a living, breathing, get-off-your-ass-and-show-up-sort of way.

To be alive is a daily practice, a discipline, a choice. Or as Andy and Redd succinctly remind us in The Shawshank Redemption - …get busy living or get busy dying…

Alive means knowing what and who bring me to life, and spending my time and energy doing those things and in relationship with those people.

Alive means choosing that which sustains, nourishes, and energizes me, rather than settling for what doesn’t.

Alive means finding that when all is said and done, I will drag myself over my finish line having spent every ounce of myself in the service of crafting a meaningful life, loving, helping, and healing the world that is within my reach, and reflecting as best I can, the image of the creative power that is behind it all.

Simply put, I want to be fully alive until I’m totally not.