me, right now

I’ve been away for quite some time, now.  It’s not from lack of opportunity, or lack of things to write about, but sometimes when there’s so much happening, so much I want to write about, I can’t seem to find the right words.  It all mixes together, and instead of meaningful thoughts and understandings, it all seems to come out sounding like white noise, just there, but not creating anything worth listening to.  I sat down to write on multiple occasions, but what resulted felt fake; like someone hijacked my heart, took everything inside of it, and forced it into a grey mass, like what you see on the side of the road days after it snows but nothing has melted.  Exhaust has turned what was once a beautiful, white blanket of snow into a gross mess of sludge. 

Maybe my own exhaustion turned what was in my heart to sludge.  There’s been so much to do!  The holiday season comes with so much- saying good-bye to some friends, traveling across the country, re-connecting with family and friends from home, and that’s not even including the holiday part, going shopping, cleaning the house, cooking for hours and hours, being social, and trying to answer the questions “how are you?” and “how’s Colorado?” and “what are you doing out there?” with honesty and respect and a single sentence.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s been an absolutely amazing month- I wouldn’t trade a day of it for anything- but I’m really really happy being back, here at the coffee shop, the mountains in front of me and behind me, hot coffee in hand, sitting down to write with a full heart.

Many of you know, and for those of you who don’t, these past two weeks of work at the Ranch have been staff training.  We don’t get our next group of students until Tuesday the 19^th, and as such, the Ranch has been really empty feeling lately.  Many of you who are teachers will understand the feeling of anticipation, an empty classroom waiting for the arrival of students to fill the chairs with their bodies and the air with their laughter.  I love this.  I love helping create a space that will soon be filled with smiles and laughter, and so much potential that you can almost see it in the air.  The other side of this, though, is the emptiness that sometimes we create, in anticipation for something better to fill it.  I’ve lived my life like this for some time now, always chasing the next adventure, absolutely certain that somewhere, anywhere, the grass really would be greener than what is here now.  It’s exhausting, this type of living. 

Maybe it is my own exhaustion that turns what’s in my heart to sludge; that blurs the colors and makes everything look grey.  Everything here, that is.  Everything across the ocean, across the country, even across the room sometimes, what’s over there remains vibrant. 

Until recently. 

Last week, I had my mid-term review with my supervisors.  It’s hard to believe that I’ve already been here for half of my contract, but that’s a tangent for another day.  Something the ranch manager said during this has stuck with me, and I haven’t been able to shake it.  We were talking about my goals for these next four months, and I was talking about improving my confidence while speaking in front of big groups.  It’s something I’ve been working on for a while.  It makes me so anxious to stand in front of a group and present anything.  I doubt what I’m saying, I doubt my ability to communicate clearly, I doubt if what I have to say is really worth listening to.  I was rambling about having the confidence to speak as if I believed that my voice mattered, and my manager interrupts me.  “So do you just not see it?”  It almost knocked the wind out of me.  Do you just not see it?  Do you not see that you do speak with confidence, you do communicate clearly, you do have something worth listening to? 

I didn’t.  I still don’t know if I truly believe it, but his words aren’t going away, and there’s a reason they’re sticking around. 

I wrote a poem the other day called “longing,” and I’d like to share some it here.

Longing:

            To create… out of my whole being;

To see… the world as already complete, to take the pieces and not be afraid to re-arrange;

To risk… because it is the only way I’ll ever know: the grass isn’t greener on the other side- Surprise! Snow isn’t green;

To act… out of the core of my being; not afraid of my body, not afraid of my mind.  I tell myself these mantras constantly, you’d think by now I’d learn their truth;

To embrace… why I’m afraid of my body, why I’m afraid of my mind, why I’m afraid of the world more often than not.  I’m so afraid of the person I don’t want to be I can hardly see how the person I am now is who I want to be. 

To believe… the person I am now is who I want to be.

I’ve spent a long time being unhappy with myself.  I think part of it comes from the constant drive to be better, and to emulate the best characteristics of all of the people around me.  It’s not bad to want to be better, but it has blinded me, on many levels, to the beauty that is what I already have, who I already am. 

I love who I am.  I love my life.  I love that I get to live and work in an amazing place with amazing people.  I’m so blessed for all of you, my family and friends all over the world who choose to follow my blog, who believed before I did, that I really do have something to say, something worth listening to, worth reading about.  I’m finally beginning to see it.  Thanks for listening, for reading; for lighting candles of creativity, compassion, passion, and love deep within my soul even before I was able to really see it. 

Some days I’m still doubtful, but I’m beginning to believe, more and more every day, that this person I already am, right here, right now, is already all of the things I’m longing for.  It’s a great place to be.