The Wisdom in our Bones
I’m closing the year out slowly, from bed, COVID positive and having been isolated in my bedroom for the past five days while my honey has been taking care of everything else. The latter part of this year has been hectic. After my son moved out in August, my partner and I moved in together. (My son is doing very well. Maybe more about that in another post.) While we expected to be mostly empty nesting it, we have instead spent the last four months in shared responsibility caring for a 4-year-old, and a disabled 27-year-old in addition to myself, my partner, and his 15-year-old son who already lived with us. Drop off duty, pick up duty, basketball practice, groceries, cooking, cleaning, hosting visiting family members, hospital visits, family training, helping with the bathroom, helping with the shower, etc. all while still managing two full time jobs and our own very essential relationship. Life has been happening all over us, abundant with challenges amidst moments of deep love and profound gratitude, laughter and some tears, and and I am just now finding myself with a moment to reflect. Today I am reflecting on Wisdom, which for me is defined as that which I know to be true, emerging from my being and experiences in the world, and is an irrefutable part of my worldview and philosophy for living. It’s the truth that I know in my bones. The stuff that Oprah calls ‘what I know for sure.’ And the beliefs by which I live my life.
What is the measure by which we evaluate our lives? Should life even be measured? In less than a year, I’ll be older than my father ever was on this earth. He lived a mere 45 years and 100 days before cancer took him from us. In a lot of ways, my father’s life has been the template for the success I was meant to achieve in this world. He was married, three times actually, had amazing children (if I may say so), a loving family, good friends, interesting travels, and what would have been considered by most a successful career. Now as I march toward my own 45th birthday, I look at my life and wonder what it has all meant so far. In some ways I have followed in his footsteps, and in others, I have strayed from the path. But in all ways I have tried to make him proud as best as I can. Have I met the mark or even come close? I’m not quite sure how I’ll feel when I finally do get there. I wonder how his ancestral wisdom will feel different remembering him as a younger man, while still at once my elder from a world and time that came before me. What wisdom lives inside me from him…from all of my ancestors…in my very bones?
Perhaps because I lost someone so essential to my identity so early on in life, evaluative life reflection has long been a regular practice of mine. As a quadruple Virgo, organization is my whole philosophy for life. It’s my religion as much as any other. It’s my experience that any problem can be solved if sufficiently dissected and planned for first. Over the years I’ve used various methods to try to objectively assess my performance, from grading myself on all the roles I play in my life and lives of others, to soliciting feedback, from the balances in my bank accounts to the balances in my emotional accounts with others, to going back to school just so I could have have some arbitrary external evidence of success. There is no one elegant way to measure a life. Yet it is an activity we will all engage in as we near the end. It’s a natural thing to consider.
And when I try to consider how I would begin to measure my life, the only answer I have these days is I don’t know. So then that always leads me to the next question…What do I know? What wisdom have I achieved in this life that is truly mine, and embodied, and earned? So this is how I am measuring my life tonight as I reflect on the last year, and on the year to come. And the time when I will have surpassed my own father in wisdom and experience, and in honor of all the adventures he missed out on and all the life I have left to live because of the life he gave me. Here are some truths I’ve seen reflected in the world…
My value is inherent, and I don’t have to do anything or say anything to earn it. Just existing is enough. Just as it is for elephants and orangutans and stars and planets and redwoods and mighty oaks and foxes and bears and owls and stags and wolves and hummingbirds and all manner of creation. I know this is true even when I find it difficult to believe.
I deserve kindness just as all people deserve gentle kindness. I strive to treat people in this way and try to ask myself before making a comment…is it loving, is it true, is it wise? And I recognize this is an area where I have an opportunity to deepen my practice. This also comes with striving to meet people authentically and transparently with love and compassion for our humanity.
Worry is a lack of trust in my future self, and she’ll be better resourced and older and wiser, and likely better equipped to handle whatever comes up, especially if I take care of her today. There is nothing to fear because when I am unsure I can always ask for help. I am lucky that I can always ask for help. And for that reason I feel compelled to always help others.
Connections are deeply important to life. The more threads of connection, the more colors and textures become woven into my tapestry of life, and so much the richer become those other tapestries where I am also a thread. What makes us who we are is what connects us. What connects us is what makes us who we are. Art is the expression of connection in form. Beauty is the reflection of connection in the world.
Loving someone is wanting them to be happy, regardless of what that means for me. I want those I love to be happy and free and fully themselves and able to have whatever they need and desire. I hope that includes me, but I can also accept when it does not. I accept relationships for as long as they’re meant to be.
Each of us has within us a Greek chorus of voices, or, as I call them, my Senate. We have senators of all kinds who will take up any argument and plead its case to us compellingly using whatever tactics without consideration for ethics or feelings or long term impact. Our senators are expressing opinions, and needn’t be heeded. They can sometimes be quite helpful. They are always very informative. They can at any time be kindly asked to take a seat.
Parenting is an exercise in self-awareness and sacrifice. You learn quickly what you would compromise for another human, what you would sacrifice, the lengths to which you’d go to protect someone. You learn what unconditional love is. You learn what true exasperation feels like. You learn the real meaning of fear. You can love anyone like this, but I don’t know how you could love a child any other way.
Life is a constant journey of confronting our own choices, both in how they limit us and how they open us up to new possibilities. How we feel is valid and essential, and a key aspect of our experience. How we behave is the way in which we shape the future world in its ever unfolding becoming. While how we feel may color our perception of every moment, it is how we behave that defines who we choose to be in the world.
How we choose to treat ourselves is a measure of our self love and self regard. When we love ourselves well and regard ourselves highly we treat ourselves with the utmost care as we would a beloved child. When we love ourselves poorly, and regard ourselves as unimportant, we don’t allocate ourselves sufficient time, energy, effort or resources. And we teach others how they should treat us through how we treat ourselves.
These are some things I know. It’s not always easy to live in accordance with these beliefs, but it gives me something to work toward. And for now, it gives me a way to bring this year to a close with some measure of satisfaction. 2022 was filled with travel and adventure, loved ones and memories. May 2023 bring us all some measure of happiness, an ease to our suffering, and the wisdom earned through a lived existence.
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