Thursday
Jan262012
We Are All Children Until We Die
Thursday, January 26, 2012
I've been feeling lost lately.
I have felt lost in one way or another for much of my life. I was adrift in a complicated family. I could find no counsel for my desires at puberty. Gender norms made me feel stricken. Depression came again and again, and then again. I fell into the valley of addiction. I loved good people badly and bad people well. I allowed abusive employment to keep me from the things I loved.
These are the things I think about when I am feeling lost. I think about all of the terrible things that I had a hand in and how I feel terrible because I am a terrible person. I only think this way, though, when I forget the truth of the matter, which is this:
We are all children until we die.
When we are little, we think that we will grow up and know what we are doing one day, that the curtains obscuring our clarity will magically part with maturity, and we will know what is right, and our paths will be marked. I know I thought that, or at least I hoped for that. I'm really glad no one disabused me of that idea back then, though. I wasn't equipped to know otherwise at the time.
The truth is that we grow and change and learn and shift all of our lives. It's the great gift that no one tells us about, this beautiful truth that nothing is ever as it seems and nothing stays the same.
When you are dropped down into the deep and are mourning losses, you go there from a higher place, and you will return to it. When you are soaring on good works and accolades, it is a happy holiday from the ground. Five years yesterday, today, and five years tomorrow held, hold, and will give you different things. There is no graduation into an established adulthood.
We are all children until we die.
When I declared my sobriety at 37, I began one of the most difficult journeys of my life. It's been a hard, long road in many ways. It's been an incredible one, too, and I've discovered so much power inside of myself that I don't know what to do with it all, and yet here I am, lost as all hell, wondering why, with all this power, the path is still not clear.
And then I remember to hold myself gently again. I remember that it's not for me to know everything, to be all the things that every situation could possibly want of me. I am only me, and I am still a child, after all, learning all of this for the first time with these eyes.
I am learning to be gentle with myself, to be gentle with you. This is the gift. We are not built and then left with whatever hand was dealt. We build until we're gone. We can't help ourselves. It's the state of humanity. It can feel like the worst thing some days to have to keep pushing and doing and changing, but on other days that is the exact thing that will have you flying.
We don't get to choose to stop being creatures of movement, but it's in that sometimes maddening dynamism that all choices are born.
I might feel lost, but I am still moving, and that will bring me somewhere more solid-feeling, at least for a time. This is not an act of faith. This is unavoidable fact. I am not finished yet — none of us are finished yet — because we are all, truly, children until we die.
----------------------------
This post came out of a comment I left on Laurie's New Year's Day.
I have felt lost in one way or another for much of my life. I was adrift in a complicated family. I could find no counsel for my desires at puberty. Gender norms made me feel stricken. Depression came again and again, and then again. I fell into the valley of addiction. I loved good people badly and bad people well. I allowed abusive employment to keep me from the things I loved.
These are the things I think about when I am feeling lost. I think about all of the terrible things that I had a hand in and how I feel terrible because I am a terrible person. I only think this way, though, when I forget the truth of the matter, which is this:
We are all children until we die.
When we are little, we think that we will grow up and know what we are doing one day, that the curtains obscuring our clarity will magically part with maturity, and we will know what is right, and our paths will be marked. I know I thought that, or at least I hoped for that. I'm really glad no one disabused me of that idea back then, though. I wasn't equipped to know otherwise at the time.
The truth is that we grow and change and learn and shift all of our lives. It's the great gift that no one tells us about, this beautiful truth that nothing is ever as it seems and nothing stays the same.
When you are dropped down into the deep and are mourning losses, you go there from a higher place, and you will return to it. When you are soaring on good works and accolades, it is a happy holiday from the ground. Five years yesterday, today, and five years tomorrow held, hold, and will give you different things. There is no graduation into an established adulthood.
We are all children until we die.
When I declared my sobriety at 37, I began one of the most difficult journeys of my life. It's been a hard, long road in many ways. It's been an incredible one, too, and I've discovered so much power inside of myself that I don't know what to do with it all, and yet here I am, lost as all hell, wondering why, with all this power, the path is still not clear.
And then I remember to hold myself gently again. I remember that it's not for me to know everything, to be all the things that every situation could possibly want of me. I am only me, and I am still a child, after all, learning all of this for the first time with these eyes.
I am learning to be gentle with myself, to be gentle with you. This is the gift. We are not built and then left with whatever hand was dealt. We build until we're gone. We can't help ourselves. It's the state of humanity. It can feel like the worst thing some days to have to keep pushing and doing and changing, but on other days that is the exact thing that will have you flying.
We don't get to choose to stop being creatures of movement, but it's in that sometimes maddening dynamism that all choices are born.
I might feel lost, but I am still moving, and that will bring me somewhere more solid-feeling, at least for a time. This is not an act of faith. This is unavoidable fact. I am not finished yet — none of us are finished yet — because we are all, truly, children until we die.
----------------------------
This post came out of a comment I left on Laurie's New Year's Day.
Reader Comments (18)
one of the things i have admired about your voice on these here interwebz is that you have a strong voice that is also gentle. i don't know how exactly you do it, perhaps it's schmutzie magic, but i really enjoy that about you.
lovely post.
I've recently discovered that if anyone's going to be the grown up here it's gotta be me. And coming to terms with that has had its own stages of grief.
I learned this lesson at age 12 by listening to my dad when he came home and told Mom what had occurred at community meetings: just because you're grown up, doesn't mean everyone will suddenly be polite, kind and sensible. There will still be conflict, and you will still have to stand up for yourself and fight for what you think is right.
I was terribly disappointed. I had looked so forward to growing up, when everyone would treat everyone else right.
You're right, there's no magic age when everything in life falls into place and we all live happily ever after. Happily ever after includes growth and change and that can be uncomfortable, and scary, and even depressing. Glad you've figured this out!
I needed to read this today. Last night I was listing all the things that "grown ups" (a mythical assignation of children to those who are over 21) are that I am not. All those actions and attitudes I'm supposed to have down pat by now-- at 45. On one hand I feel I can't be a grown up anymore than I can be a unicorn. On the other hand, someone has to do what must be done, and that's gotta be me, can be me, if only I will.
I'm glad to hear that you are learning to treat yourself gentley...I truely think that if we all learned that we'd be alot better off.
lovely post :)
I remember that it's not for me to know everything, to be all the things that every situation could possibly want of me.
This is the thing I batter myself against over and over and over. It makes me so very sad to admit it, too.
Wow. Well put. I think we should try to be moving to a world that is more gentle. The growing pains are worth it.
Beautiful prose. Thank you for sharing it. Now I will just try to remember to be gentle with myself too ...
I do think that as we grow older, we'll grow gentler. From there, it's socks with sandals all the way, man.
Very well said, and so true. I bluev I don't start the journey of self discovery unil I was 30, and will be figuring our for the rest of my life
As my parents are not in my life, I guess don't think of myself as a child, but I like to think of myself as discovering. And yes sometimes just adrift....
I couldn't agree more, you're so right, there is no magical age....we stumble, we fall, we get up on our feet and then, we stumble again:) It's a part of living, and we are all children until we die....
PS: I just want to share this quote by Anne Lamott, for it seems just so apt....
"You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think your way into becoming yourself."
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." -SS
any time you want to talk, i am here. i do love you, you know.
I think that some people feel things more deeply than others. You are one of those deep feelers. And a deep thinker...lol.
We are always building, except for those in the equal and opposite business of tearing down. This is a reminder to be kinder to myself about it all.
" I loved good people badly and bad people well." Oh God. That is my life in nine words. Thank you for this (for everything). This post is perfect, so much so that often when I read your words I think we're one person in two bodies, and it soothes and sometimes solves to know I am not alone in how I feel, in how I struggle.
And most interesting....when I read your words I Girl Crush on you, and reflecting I see it is a way of loving myself, given such similarities. Your rawness in disclosing is so utterly beautiful. You are luminous in writing, in photos, and I'm certain in person as well.
Bravo, and bless you.
XO
I love this. Because it is pure truth. xo