Today is my 40th birthday. (What?! Wow. Very Libra of me to announce it to you.) So, I'm going to do something different and share with you almost the exact, unedited text from a journal entry of mine recently. It felt less like processing and more like a thing that came through me, as a reflection after listening again to my conversation with Andreas Weber, out last week. As Glennon says, "Write from your scar and not your wound." I think the scar has formed, though I'm not going to bother with my usual level of grammatical perfection or obsession over making every sentence beautiful. I hope it resonates with you in some way. If it doesn't, jump to the links below for nuance :)
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A Big Life +

Death

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​“Surrendering isn't just 'giving up,' it's letting go of fruitless struggles and radically accepting reality. Surrendering is an act of self-care.” — We The Urban​
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There is something deep in me that knows I can't keep operating the way that I always have, believing I must take care of everything on my own (a kind of avoidant attachment). I've exhausted myself doing it, which then makes me desperate for someone or something else that will take care of me, to relieve my overwhelming exhaustion (a kind of anxious attachment and codependence).

It explains why, when I am in my hardest, darkest, most down places, my constant refrain is wishing I had someone else to help me take care of all the things—all the laundry, the cooking, the groceries, and, at my most childlike, bathing me, brushing my teeth, and actually just holding me. I would very much like someone to take over for me, please and thank you.

Sadly, it means I have lived a lot of my life not just exhausted, but then also very alone, because this is not a place where someone can easily step in.

I push others away while also asking them to meet deep, unattended needs I haven't even bothered to meet myself.

It means I have approached everything from a place of needing help and needing to be heard instead of giving. Instead of freedom and abundance, I am actually causing more trauma and violence, putting that trauma and violence on other people.

I have been doing this everywhere, all the time: in my relationships, in my finances, in my work, and in running a business. I have been so constantly fixated on what to DO, and what task to tackle next in order to avoid death—death being the loss of a partner, or the loss of a job, or the loss of my financial security, or the loss of my house. I am constantly obsessed with my to-do list and with planning because I am the only one who's going to take care of me and make sure that the dying doesn't happen.

I think:
​I am the only one who will take care of me.
It's all on me, all the time.
I can control it all; I can keep from dying.

If I just keep doing the next task, saying yes to every job or offer that comes my way, even if I don't really want it, everything will be alright. Because DOING makes me feel like I can keep myself alive. DOING makes me feel like I'm earning my keep. Achievements make me feel like I have receipts to prove my value. DOING makes me feel like I'm heard.

I keep screaming in to the void, hoping to be heard, so that I'm not abandoned, so that I know I'll survive the abyss.

I'm guessing this happened when I was a baby, like most of us.

Oddly, it actually means I'm not attending to myself at all. I'm not listening to my own self and what truly needs care, so then I go looking for other people to care for me. That's the difference between interdependence and codependency: Interdependence says, "I have more than enough, and what I have in abundance meets a need of yours"; codependence says, "I don't have enough, and I need you to fill me up."

Codependency is seemingly contradictory in that way. It feigns individual control, but you practice it by controlling others. Instead of trusting that community will provide mutually, across the commons, for all of our attendant needs, it says, "I don't trust that I'm cared for, so I need you to prove it to me."

And I'm coming to believe that it's keeping literal magic, and abundance, and unmitigated joy from me at every turn. So I believe that my best move, my biggest transformation, would be to literally stop DOING. To say NO to anything that isn't what I really want. And I mean REALLY want, with absolute clarity.

Things that seem close to what I want? No.
Work that keeps me resourced but that I hate doing? No.

Let it all fall apart if it must.
I think my higher self would be on the other side of that, if that's what's needed.

No house? I'll survive.
No money? I'll survive.
No partner? No friends? I'll survive.
No job? I'll survive.
Peoples' opinions of me are total shit? I'll survive.

Can you imagine what I'd learn, what I'd gain, if all the things I feared to happen actually happened and I realized I was still here? Not to aim for it, certainly, and not to stop contributing so that I'm constantly expecting everyone else to care for me, but that none of it had any power over my life any longer?

THAT'S freedom.

Because out of that place, I can truly give.
Because out of that place, I'm not controlled by anything.
I am at the mercy of nothing because I'm not afraid to lose anything.

Goals fall away.
Planning falls away.
Nothing but now remains.
And "now" is a big life.

Truly being willing to die is the only path to a bigger life than I can possibly imagine.

Actually, the truth is more like this:
No house? The earth and I belong to each other. All property is an illusion.
No money? Every bank account is mine. All money is available to me.
A million dollars? It's all the same because I could lose that, too. It's also everyone else's as much as it's "mine," so what is money but the energy I share?
No success? I only "make it" if everyone else makes it.
No partner? I am partnered with everything and everyone. We are all in constant relationship.
No job? I am always giving my skills, and time, and talent.
No income? My value isn't measured by my paycheck.
No social media followers? I am heard, always. I speak and the infinite hears me, because—plot twist—I am actually the infinite.
No one likes me? I like myself, and because of that, I invite others to like me, too.
Happy or sad? No matter, I am here.

So, what I want going forward is this:

To be someone who believes that I am heard, because I am here.
To be someone who believes that I am loved, because I am here.
To believe I can survive anything because death doesn't scare me.

In that space, I am empty.
In that space, I can receive.
In that space, I can truly give.

Anything short of that is a half-lived life, at best.
And I am not here to waste a gift like this.
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Favorite Recent Finds
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1. Two things that are great "yes/and" responses to my essay above. First, this piece, which includes essential considerations when asking, "Should I quit my job to focus on [my art]?" Favorite line: "I am almost less interested if you are good enough, and more interested in if you’re committed enough." And, Slide #4 here (point #3), which is about relationships but nonetheless speaks to how "choice" is inherently bound up in privilege.
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2. I keep reading the description of this class, fantasizing about taking it. I tell you this so you at least start checking out the work of Ashley Jane Lewis.
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3. How to do your creative work with very little time.​
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4. ​Everyone's new boyfriend.​
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5. And, the Scottish Highlands + the American Appalachians = the same mountain range. I loved reading the comment thread because, um, the cultures are also relatively similar? As others say there: My mind? Blown.

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Have a great article at the intersection of disciplines or ideas? Know of someone connecting the seemingly un-connectable? Or, just want to send me the best new Sarah Paulson meme to fuel my obsession? Tweet me!​

Better yet, reply here and let me know what you think about a big life + death.

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