The word ‘humble’ keeps coming up in my Morning Pages. Sometimes it feels virtuous. Other times it pisses me off because I feel it’s born of having events forced upon me that show me I’m not in control. As in, I am so humbled by my knee injury or so humbled by someone’s passing. The anger comes up because I know I’m being forced to figure out what it means or be doomed to one of those existences I don’t understand where people see life as a bunch of isolated or random incidents.
No. At age 50, I am certain that is not for me. Because most of the time I experience the kind of humble that revels in that space of “OK, higher being, you’ve put this on my plate. I am supposed to extract a lesson or gain some perspective or something.” That something can cover a lot of territory. Maybe it’s, “OK, I don’t understand your grand plan, but maybe I’m not supposed to … yet.”
This keeps coming up. Humble. I am not taking this lightly. It’s one thing to be humble about one’s abilities or accomplishments, it’s another to put oneself in a place of vulnerability.
I keep thinking of a friend who isn’t particularly aligned with my life philosophy. Her message on all of what’s been swirling around me the last few months is, for example, that perhaps I need to learn that sometimes knees give out and it’s part of aging and that trying to dig into why we might manifest something is blaming the victim. None of this sits well with me because it feels like a shallow interpretation of my deeply held beliefs, but it does serve to reinforce my way of being and how much I love it. There is joy for me in the ‘whys’ and I don’t buy the idea that so much of what we experience is inevitable. I like to look at reasons. It gives me comfort and makes life richer.
I concede the idea of some control appeals to me and that I despise being at the mercy of things. And perhaps there’s some residual stuff kicking up here with regard to a friendship that made me feel needy for so long. I come from a more confident place now and that part of myself recognizes this could be a bit of misplaced anger where I’m chewing on an old bone.
Bottom line, I don’t want to be needy. Or humble, truthfully.
So, bam. There it is. Truth. Mercy, neediness, humility. Quite a trio. And apparently I equate them. And not in a way that feels positive or helpful.
I need my friends right now. See, I like having friends. I love having friends. But I hate needing them. Why am I not expressing the need? Needy, needy, needy. I need. If I don’t learn to say it, I’m going to end up communicating like my parents, who expect people to read their minds when they need something. Goodness.
I need.
Say it again.
I need.
Again.
I need.
Do you mean it?
I do. But I don’t like it.
You don’t have to like it. Just allow yourself to say it.
I need.
OK, then. Welcome to humanity.
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Maybe then I can say, “He loved to talk about spirituality.” But right now, no. It’s still “loves.” Because there’s still a dialogue happening.
But this, this was real, baby. This was the stuff of societal norms and judgment and inadequacy taken to a completely different place. It jarred me and opened me, as a soulful thinker and a writer. I quickly became obsessed with Piercy, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, so tortured and smart in ways that were uniquely female.
Because God knows I’m not in control over the big stuff. You know, death. My Aunt Laura died yesterday. My mother lost a sister. My cousins lost a mother and their children a grandmother. Why she was chosen for an agonizing death is not mine to figure out, but it hasn’t stopped my mind from spinning about it nonetheless.
This is not a story for the black-and-white types, for there is far too much gray. I love gray. The best of life is in the gray. It can be tenuous, but something beautiful can happen in the melding of potent hues when they create another shade. Makes me want to crawl into it and bathe.
