Welcome to issue #7 of my letters! (You can read the others here.) We say things like, "It's that time of year again," and "Time flies!" while we roll our eyes at the cliche of their repetition, but time really does fly (if it even exists), and it really is that time of year again (in every moment). Nothing is new, but sometimes some things seem new, depending on the time and the place and the version of you that you happen to be right now. It's all a remembering and we're all walking each other home, for real. The key in this time and place and version of me that I happen to be right now is to walk with those who are walking at the same pace. For better or worse, til death or change in pace do us part.
As always, thank you for reading! <3
Sometimes I feel I'm a crypt keeper, maintaining and polishing the gravestones, the urns, the mausoleums of the things I thought I'd buried and burned.
I maintain and polish, maintain and polish, keeping alive the spirits of the past.
Today is a day for donning masks to ward off evil spirits. I'll join in the festivities, but not before I remove the old masks, the ones that birthed, invited, enticed evil spirits to play, to stay.
I find myself in the middle of something - a transition, probably. I find myself wanting to be heard, to be understood, vindicated, validated.
I want to be right. Rather, I know I'm "right," and I want that to be acknowledged by those who don't know it. Nobody cares but me. It eats me alive.
And so, I bury and burn. I maintain and polish.
The first time I remember caring what others thought was on a field trip to the farm. We waited in line to milk a cow, and though I was ready to meet this mother, this revered creature, and have a (literal) hand in facilitating the nourishment of her calf, I let the squealing disgust of my classmates before me remove me from myself and place me into the part of myself that wanted to belong. And so I squealed my feigned disgust. Nobody cared. I didn't know it at the time, but it ate me alive. I buried and burned. I maintained and polished.
Lifetimes pass in this same way, and all I ever recognize is that something is amiss. But I don't judge myself for this. After all, we are asleep until we awaken.
I peel the mask from my eyes and see the truth:
We each have our own values against which we align our lives, our relationships, our friendships, our choices.
We can all be right and we can be all right.
But I also now know what it means to me to feel safe and held in the presence of those with whom everything buried and burned is loved and honored. With these people, I wear no mask. I don't feel asked to. They guide me to remember to trust myself, and with them, I only ever feel free. It is an awakening and a new value against which to align my energy, my time, my life, my relationship.
Everything has its season, and I am newly shown the ways in which I can love better and truer. And if anything, there's that.
So if you see me with a mask on, now you know why.
Until next time-
<3 SBU