#52. Terms of Use

I have this one client in group who, without fail, about 15–30 minutes into our 90-minute session, will sit back, stare at her art, and groan about how much she hates it. And I, without fail—with the borrowed bravado of a drill sergeant and the relentless optimism of a cheerleader—will yell out over the music and the din of everyone in creation and conversation:

“Work through the hate! Use it! Keep painting!”

She groans again. But she always keeps going. By the end of group, she sits back again, smiles, and proudly asks everyone if she can show us what she made.

If we move through the messy middle, we either get to a place where we like what we made… or we’re okay that we don’t. I think I’m in that place now. In life. In writing. In aging. In body image. In this very moment. Just wanting to get to a place where I like it. Or at least, where I’m okay with not liking it.

I think that’s what grace is. It must be.I never really knew what it meant, but now I think I’ve caught a glimpse.

I find myself more often in the middle than at the beginning, full of hope, or at the end, filled with clarity or acceptance. So, if I’m going to live here for the majority of the time, I might as well learn how to be here—not in the best way, necessarily, but the most easeful, the most open.

And that’s grace. Grace is the working through. And we work through by being with each paint stroke. Each word. Each moment of doubt.

In the same group, a client who’d been gone for a while asked if I had kids. When I said no—a collective gasp. Shock. Horror. Disbelief. It’s the conversation we women find ourselves in forever, until right before we reach the point where those questions stop coming. I’m not at that point yet. Obviously.

I said my piece, in peace. They seemed okay with it—but still felt the need to offer their own justifications: That I’m like a mother in other ways. That I have a nephew, so a "legacy" can still continue.

Look, I wanted to say. You’ve got your own ways of dodging death, and I’ve got mine. You’ve got procreation—an attempt to vicariously and genetically extend your life’s warranty. I’ve got the hourly ritual of staring at this one gray hair that keeps popping up within view. It’s an ongoing battle: me and my grays. Keep ’em or cover ’em? I’ve got over-exercising and obsessive macro counting. Eating “healthy”—whatever that even means now. The definition seems to shift by the hour. I procrastinate on creating because once something is finished, there’s a tiny baby grief that’s born in the ending. A delivery of something, yes—but also a letting go. It’s no longer in me; it’s out in the world. And there’s beauty and fear in that. Creation's in me, too, see? My version is just less diaper-dependent.

--

Every time I log in to write or to sign off on group notes, a pop-up appears—like a bureaucratic Zen koan:

“Sign in and Accept Terms of Use.”

And right below it, just to drive the point home, it insists:

“By signing in, you indicate that you have read and agree to be bound to the current terms of use.”

It got me wondering: How many things in life do I hit Accept on without giving it a second or even a first thought? How many parts of this day, this body, this planet—do I log into on autopilot, without even or ever skimming the fine print? Would I still agree if I actually read the terms of this whole thing - this aging, aching, absurd, glorious, maddening experience of being human?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I mean—yes. On some level, my soul agreed to this. Some shimmering preincarnation of me knew exactly what she was doing. And I trust her. Mostly.

I'm starting to realize that the fine print is the messy middle. We don’t get to skip it. We hit “Accept.” We log in. We live the terms—moment by moment, breath by breath. We don’t have to agree. But that’s where the suffering creeps in, doesn’t it? The not agreeing to age. To change. To allow or answer questions about how we live and why. To gray hairs and conscious consumption of food and stuff. To the mess and the not-yet and the what-now.

So maybe the point and the practice is this:

Get to a place where I’m okay with it.

Or at least where I'm okay not being okay with it.

Grace.

Grace is where I stop turning beauty into burden. Where I stop trying to outrun death. Where I stop quitting. Where I keep painting. Brushstroke by brushstroke. Not rushing toward the end just because the middle feels too hard or sad or gross or unbearable.

Even writing this letter—I was so attached to saying one particular thing, and it just wasn’t working. That was my messy middle. And now I’m here.

Sure, I can revise the terms.

Or I can read them, click Accept—and this time, really mean it.

As always, with love and thanks,

BROOKIE

P.S. My oracle cards are finally available for pre-order!

They came together during a season of uncertainty—when I wasn’t sure about a lot of things, but I kept showing up anyway. They weren’t forced into being, then they were, then they weren’t again.

Each card is a piece of that trust—trust in the magic of making it through the middle.

If you’re in your own middle, I hope they meet you there—reminding you that you don’t have to rush through it. You can stay. You can keep going.