A few weeks ago, I felt an undercurrent of stress and anxiety, and the desperate need to abandon life as we know it and live by the water, or in the mountains, or deep in a forest. It was totally out of character. Mitch was confused. But it was actually perfectly simple.
Nature sustains itself. It’s not waiting on me. It’s not broken. It doesn’t need fixed.
And while that’s wildly terrifying, it’s unbelievably freeing.
Terrifying because I’m the type who looks for my capital “M” Meaning in what I do…
Freeing because it’s not working. No matter what I do, Meaning seems to elude me.
As I’ve grown this baby, we’ve decorated a nursery and I’ve bought plenty of new things. They call it nesting. I think it’s mostly my desperation to DO something while I wait for the baby to come. I’m scared of being bored. I’m afraid of time passing without action, without purpose. I crave that busy productivity to feel like time isn’t being wasted…
I’m not being wasted…
I’m not a waste.
So there we were, on a Saturday in September, and I was feeling the futility of it all. So we packed up and drove to Michigan, to the woods and the lake. And the closer we got, the more the good truth sunk in. It’s not just nature. It’s everything. There is no crisis. Nothing is waiting on me. And while the epic narrative I like to write for myself puts me at the busy center of fixing things, I begin to realize nothing is fucked, and that’s ok.
The temptation to find brokenness and fix it is most potent for me in the realm of motherhood. It’s so easy to make a big deal about careful coaching, limits on screen time, excessive reading, or negligence over healthy food. I can get hyper about wanting to birth at home, researching the perfect baby carriers and diaper bags, and buying only organic cotton clothes. It’s not right or wrong. I just recognize that there’s a part of me that does it for significance. I’m reaching for Meaning, measuring myself, and putting pressure on everything around me, including my family, to be broken in a way that I can fix. To make it all matter, I’m literally weighing it all down, because heavy means substantial right?
Deep down, I know all the buying, and researching, and problem solving is never enough. It doesn’t make me feel significant. It doesn’t make me feel more worthy. There’s always more time that needs filled. And I’m just as afraid of the boredom and the stillness as ever. So I let it wash over me again. Nothing is fucked, and that’s ok. I can begin to find my significance and worth in just being alive, going to the edge of the water, up that mountain, into those woods, or to the breakfast table with my kids, just to be…
Just to be there…
And let being be enough.
I want to let birthing and wifing and mothering be important and special and precious to me, without making them heavier or more intense than they are, especially not to satisfy some emptiness I feel. Perhaps I’ll always be a little fearful that I don’t matter, and that none of the things I do really make any difference. But I don’t really worry that there is no Meaning. I think I’m learning everything has Meaning inherently. It’s not my job to make moments matter, or improve things. Nothing is fucked, and maybe I can learn to be ok with it. Maybe I can learn to live my life at the water’s edge, having done nothing but breathe and bear witness, rather than spend my life focused on the illusion of brokenness and the futility of fixing it all.
