Another one of those 3am wake-ups with a tight chest and the weight of a hundred thoughts and feelings swirling between my head, heart, and gut.
I tried to breathe through it. Tried to relax my mind. Momentarily clung to the idea that tonight was supposed to be my "catch-up" night of 8 or 9 hours sleep. Got up to use the bathroom and felt tears squeeze their way onto my cheeks. Considered tip-toeing upstairs and crawling into bed with Cristina (my rock), who has told me repeatedly that I can always do that if need be.
And then I remembered this blog. And its purpose in helping me type through these moments. Collect them. Process them. Let the swirling of head, heart, and gut be released onto the page.
When I went to type in "embracing the elephant" to find my way here (I haven't visited or posted in over a month), I felt laughter rising up in my chest.
"Really?" I thought. "How did I not make that connection?"
Sitting in my living room right now is the beginnings of a cardboard elephant head. My "random inspiration" of last wednesday evening, as I mused about what sort of mask might best top my paisley pink-purple-green-yellow jumpsuit in honor of Halloween. Never once did I think "elephant in the room" or think of this blog and this year and the potential symbolism there. I just thought an elephant head might look cool and present a unique challenge to my cardboard-crafting abilities.
Oh synchronicity. I sometimes really appreciate your sense of humor.
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What brings me here tonight (this morning) is my motto for the this year. Holding loosely. Holding loosely amidst the rapids and eddies of change and movement and transition.
Riding home today with a coworker, the conversation turned to the future, new developments in his life, and the realization that those developments might take him away from his life in Portland, his job at Hands On, his world here, and send him and his wife into a new beginning in Atlanta as she begins her new dream job there as head of our network. At the time, I took the conversation in stride. My focus was on him, on how he was feeling amidst these transitional thoughts and conversations, on what the future might hold for him. My voice was curious. The weight of what he was saying felt suspended in midair; it wasn't something I was ready to let sink in, perhaps.
At 3am, in the midst of my dream-sleep, apparently the news finally seeped its way through my external armor and into my core. I awoke restless, heavy, vulnerable. On my tongue was the taste of a future workplace without one of my mentors... and not just a workplace without him (which I have envisioned in the past during conversations of our futures), but a Portland without his presence and the opportunity to grab a monthly or bi-monthly beer and connect. Even though it has been three years since he was my direct supervisor and at least a year or two of feeling less consistently connected in our work than we used to be, Brenden has always been an incredibly important rock for me in the work that we do. He reminds me -- both actively and through his own presence and actions -- to ground myself in our mission, to build relationships, to stay connected to our heart.
Envisioning his absence... the hole he would leave behind... struck me incredibly hard in my bleary-eyed wakefulness. As I sink into the idea that I might now be working for Hands On/UW for the next few years (when I had been entertaining personal change myself as recently as last year), the reality of losing one of my rocks hit me with alternating waves of sadness and fear.
Two of the themes in my journey through loss. Of the two, fear is my default. And sinking into the sadness, letting myself feel that, takes a deeper space of vulnerability. The I'm-alone-in-my-bed-at-3am kind apparently works well to bring me there.
As the sadness sinks in through the fear, I begin to remember that the other side of loss is opportunity for growth. And while the process is not a strictly linear one, it feels to me like I have to break through the fear-reflex to really get at the underlying maelstrom of feelings beneath (of which sadness is one). And only when I really allow myself to feel those underlying emotions can I really begin to feel some of that hope and openness to opportunity and that side of the equation.
I know I will need to hash this out many, many times in the months and years to come, trying to feel my way through that process of loss, on all of its varying levels.
The possibility of Brenden leaving is one more layer in the life lesson of holding loosely. And holding loosely has been the biggest tool in my collection of mindful mantras to fight the fear that accompanies loss. If I can hold loosely now, if I can understand that movement and change are integral to life (and mine in particular, as an action type), if I can cultivate that space as a space of opportunity, not a fearful chasm to slip through... if.
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Part of the lesson of holding loosely is being present in the now without focusing too much on how the now may or may not last into the future. That's the part I've been actively exploring (or trying to explore) in the last year.
Part of the lesson, too, however, has to do with the past. And that's where I feel somewhat challenged in my journey. I have always been a documenter. A collector of memories. Rooted very strongly in the experiences that have shaped me, the people that have influenced me, the reflections I have gathered.
The other week, I mentioned having boxes of old journals and writings to Jordan -- the buddhist-leaning minimalist who owns very little and feels most comfortable in a room sans stuff. He looked at me and asked, almost off-handedly, "Why do you keep them?"
It was the first time I think I've ever been asked that question. And I felt myself rise to their defense with a sense of guarded heat. "They define important parts of my life, they allow me to sink back into past moments, revisit memories and all their attached emotions. They are my memories. They are where I come from. They are me."
I've always felt like my box of journals would be something I would try to grab if my house were burning down. I've spent time thinking about how I might back up my computer files and cloud-based storage -- like email! and pictures! -- so that I can have that copy "for safe keeping." I don't want to lose where I've come from, even if I rarely revisit it.
As it stands, if I so desire, I can sink right back into my headspace from any romantic relationship I've been in through captured correspondence. I can revisit moments in school through assignments and journal entries. I have an "external memory" to turn to... for comfort.
I am my father's daughter.
And to some degree, it scares me how much that feels like an integral part of who I am. Documenting the past for safe-keeping. As if the only way I can move forward "holding loosely" is if I know I have at least collected all those "moments of now" to revisit later. So that they aren't truly lost.
"I wouldn't be who I am without... my memories."
Thinking about moving my father and his vast and unwieldily paper trail raises my anxiety... in large part because I empathize with that desire to hold on. And I can't make heads or tails of how we'll be able to move through all that stuff with some sense of pragmatic reality.
Being challenged (again by Jordan) to muse about my desire to have children of my own has also raised in me feelings of not just wanting to "leave my mark", but also not wanting to be forgotten. To have some one else to carry me forth in memories. To have someone else with a closet that can hold my dusty journals even after I'm gone. Evolutionary biology is an interesting thing. Keeping our lineage alive...
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News of Brenden's possible departure once again opened up the doors to thinking about my own future. That hazy thing I sometimes grasp at, but which feels like an incredibly unknown and unguided landscape.
Whenever I think of my future, I think of my now. And what things might be different. Often I find myself focused on what things the future might be missing (versus the now) and how that would be, rather than on things the future might have added, because it's easier to think of what I know than what I don't know.
Thinking of Brenden leaving made me think about five years from now for me... will I have some of my best friends move away? What will it be like to no longer have Cristina as a housemate? If Heather leaves again? What if I move to a new city, without the web of connectivity I have built up over the past nine years in this town?
I spend much less time envisioning some sort of "ideal" future. I instead muse on the "ideal" moments of the present and the past.
How can I balance "holding loosely" with envisioning goals and hopes for my future... and taking the steps I need to get there?
I have become adaptable to change as it greets me, but how often have I been the one to instigate that change with future possibilities in mind? I know how to add but not as easily how to leave one thing to make room for another.
I don't like closing doors.
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And of course I thought about my mom. And about how, at my last counseling appointment, I found myself admitting just how tired I am of the uncertainty. The roller coaster. The inability for any of us to seemingly make *intentional* change at this juncture. Hurry up and wait. Be on call. Monitor the situation. Be present when you can. Plan for the future if you can... but you won't really know till you're in it.
I think once I am in the midst of change, I can ride it relatively well. I have something to grasp onto, I have rapids to navigate. It's the meandering go-with-the-flow moments before the rapids that raise my anxiety level. The fear that entangles itself with anticipation of an unknown (or a somewhat known) around the next bend.
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It's hard to act when I'm floating in a slow current. And it's hard for me to sit still.
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Holding loosely is only part of the adventure.
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