Credo.

[labelleizzy]

I'm consuming too much media.
It interferes with my capacity for independent thought, interrupts ideas-in-progress.

YMMV, of course, but it's notable in my case.

Was thinking earlier today about what does it really mean to be grown up?
Adult?
A "Woman"?
A "Man"?

To put a different spin on it, when exactly do us Walking Wounded finally come to own our own souls?
Our bodies, our health, our own opinions and reality?


I had no concept of myself as lovable for the first 18 years of my life. I had no idea of myself as attractive, gorgeous, loved, until I was 20 (thanks, gorgeous and loved Irishman...) I had no idea of myself as a dancer till I joined Travellers' Union at age 22 and started to learn English Country Dance and Ballroom (Thanks, all you former Travellers!) I had no idea I could be athletic until I started taking TaeKwonDo (thanks, Master Rankins!) at age 26.

Of course, I didn't realize I could be broken, either. I challenged myself to try new things, always proceeding with caution, hesitantly. But I could feel my self stretching, growing, filling out, and dimly sensing that the possibility of *flowering* was there, even if I wasn't robust and juicy enough yet.

Then I backslid. I married the wrong guy (or, the right guy, because I did need the "another opportunity for growth" because I was STUCK and needed to be jarred loose). I fucked up my knee from trusting that my teachers knew my body and abilities better than I did (dumb, dumb, blind, thoughtless and dumb), and I coped with the first disease/problem that was the brush with death. That's when I discovered that doctors are not omniscient, they are human, and make mistakes. I worked on healing myself and in the time I thought I was face-to-face with my own ceasing-to-be, I looked at my blind spots and my dead spots and my not-broken-but-grew-crooked spots. And I started trying to remove the dead spots and enlivening the dead spots and retraining the grew-crooked spots.

Then I made progress. I worked with the Thiasos, a group of Hellenic Pagans based in Sacramento and the Bay area, and I started to learn what mattered. That *I* mattered. That *I* was a child of god, same as the trees and the stars (thanks, Desiderata!) That I was worthy. That I could be strong, but that I would have to work on it, since I had a habit of thinking of myself as weak. I learned that I was *beautiful* (Thanks, Adelphai! *wipes tears from eyes*) though it had to come to me as a surprise and after a lot of time working on my headspace. After that, I joined a learning coven, a Wicca 101 group, and started to work on becoming strong and principled.

Still I referred to myself as a "girl". A "girl" of thirty-something, because "woman" was ... fraught. Being "a woman" felt like more than I could claim for myself. I mostly referred to myself as a "person". "Woman" still is complicated (political, and with lots of connotations), but at 41 with the life experience I have? I'm finally referring to myself as a woman, because somewhere between 30 and 40 I actually DID "grow up:"

I did start taking responsibility for my own health and my own happiness.
I did start taking responsibility for my own life and my part in building or destroying my own relationships.
I did start making the conscious decision to strive to be kind and compassionate and truthful. To live my sense of what is right and true and ethical.

Whenever I start to feel like I'm treading water instead of making forward progress, I look at what I'm saying, and what I'm doing, and what I'm thinking. I look at where my relationships are, and if there is any place I have enough resources to help someone else - time, attention, energy, and sometimes money or goods.

One of the Christian philosophical systems has a saying: Lord, let me be an instrument of your peace. I add:
Lord, let me be an instrument of joy.
Lord, let me be an instrument of healing,
Lord, let me be an instrument of hope and compassion.

I am a grown up now. In my way of thinking, that entails a number of responsibilities.

If you have strengths, you use them in the service of weakness, and helping others become stronger.
If you have learning, you use it in the service of educating ignorance into knowledge.
If you have passion, you work to fan the flames of passion in the world: passion for justice, for truth, for beauty, for fairness.
If you have health, you use it to help others heal themselves.
If you have traveled from brokenness to wholeness? You work on helping others see and fix the broken wherever it is to be found.

And you know what? None of this is *easy*.
None of this Living on Planet Earth is easy. We get sick, we suffer. We hurt each other, intentionally and un.
We lose possessions we value. Maybe we learn something.
People we love die. We suffer. Maybe we learn something.
People around us suffer. Maybe today we have enough to share, a hand to stretch out in comfort. Maybe we are the ones suffering, and hoping to have the comfort of another's hand. And maybe we learn something.

and maybe? maybe what we learn? is that's what Love is.
maybe once we stop being afraid, we can put Love to work in our lives.
For real.
And maybe that is all the Change we need.



If Love drives out Fear, how do we make sure everyone has enough Love? How do we help people Not be Afraid?

It starts with me. It starts with one word, one hug, one (dumb) little post on the internet.



And the courage to make it public.

It's easy to write for people I've chosen, people I know I can trust. I'm going to stretch my trusting muscle farther today.


Remember. Love. Learn. Hope.

Comments

[tsgeisel.livejournal.com]

You can do it.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

*I* like your icon!

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

Good post.

I've been a grown up since I could walk, but I will always be a child. The wonder part. I need that for my children. Sometimes the world feels very new and sometimes I feel like there's 20,000 years of history on my shoulders.

But there's always something to learn.

You're a very brave woman. Person. Being.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

thank you. The wonder part, somehow I never lost it, even when life was horrible: when my dad was sick, when my brother was sick, in the throes of my first marriage breaking up, when *I* was sick...

to me it feels like the world is always new AND old, and it's no contradiction, no paradox.

[tshuma]

The wonder part, somehow I never lost it

Yes. This has always been a significant piece of the description of you in my mind, all these years.

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

I hated being a child with a deep and bitter passion even though I didn't have an unusually hard childhood. In fact, many would have said it was pretty easy, though in the throes of it, I certainly didn't think so!

While in many ways, I don't feel significantly different than when I was in my late teens, I thought of myself as a woman then. I was called "ma'am" by strangers and I could take care of a household. (I was "housewife" when my mother started a business and didn't have time to run the home).

I figured doing stuff adults do MADE me an adult. Maybe I was arrogant, but I figured if the adults around me could be ignorant fuckups and still be adults, if I was taking care of business, I was, too.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

I did not love being a child. I was a *person* who happened to be inexperienced with the world and with people. I lacked skills, not humanity. I preferred the company of adults, but they thought I was "cute" for the most part. My peers were not ... what I would have wished for, and I did not get nourished well, until I found real, good friends around age 13. Blessed be my girl scout troupe. I don't know how I would have survived adolescence without the experience of acceptance SOMEWHERE.

But no, I struggled to find the skills that made adult decisions possible. And judged myself harshly for not learning faster. Among other things.

but yeah, childhood sucked. No personal agency and people don't take your attempts at communicating your needs seriously.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

I think you do pretty damn well. And I like watching you growing and learning and healing. It is a good thing. Go you!

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

I was doing stuff the "adults" around me were screwing up left and right with better ability than them by the time I was in my teens.

This has scarred me for life in ways I am still figuring out. They were screwups beyond all belief, and blamed me for their screwups, while I worked to clean their messes up and try to take care of myself.

I struggle with all of this, because I was more "adult" as a child than the people who were supposed to be adults.

It also makes for difficulty relating with and understanding people who had the experience of something more resembling childhood - I can't imagine their experience.

Shit happens. It is what it is. I don't know what to do, but I'm still angry.

[blacksheep-lj.livejournal.com]

So say we all.

Good post.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

thank you.

[sarabellae.livejournal.com]

Liz, you're wonderful in every way. xo

[apel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing about your experience growing up. I'm around the same age as you, and even though I see myself as grown-up, the growing up experience doesn't seem to end just yet. :-)

Thanks also for adding me as a friend. You clearly have a lot to say that I want to read, so I added you back and included you in my recovery and religion filters. Almost all my posts are in those two filters, so my LJ will look very different to you now.

Feel free to comment on old stuff. I get the LJ emails and usually comment in reply.