Well, thats interesting. Im actually learning how to take everything less seriously and actively living this understanding. About a week ago, I posted an experience on my Hawk and Lily page about how I met a busser at a restaurant in Maui whos story of why he moved to the island was very similar to mine for Kauai -- 14 years ago, he visited the island for the first time, it felt like home, and he never stopped wanting to move here. Then, a year ago, he sold everything he had in New York and did just that. Thing is, 6 years ago he became blind. 4 years ago, he received the gift of sight through a 30 year-old male donor on his right eye and a 9 year-old female donor on his left. He now works to help blind and deaf children embrace who they are, and busses as a way to be social and to be humble. The thing about moving to the islands, he tells me, is that youll get to know parts of yourself that are much lighter than you thought and other parts that are much darker than you thought. I can say that I love myself now more than I ever have in my life, because I really know all of who I am. I was beyond grateful for this interaction, because it was precisely what I needed to hear. I thought I was doing something wrong, wondering why this move is proving harder than any other in my life, until I came to see that Im not doing anything wrong at all -- I just happen to be living in full color and in all directions, inward and outward and beyond. I am becoming a version of me I never anticipated. Through this man who had once not been able to see, he opened my eyes wider to the truth of whats happening through my being here in Kauai. Thats why Im seeing my ego come up. Im seeing that in working at the cafe, I feel compelled to tell people Im doing something more. Like my existing isnt enough. Like my coming to Hawaii just to enjoy all of life without any guilt isnt enough. Like I MUST, HAVE TO, SHOULD be contributing to life in bold, blocky capital letters underscored three times and then followed by a few exclamation points. This experience of being here is a huge lesson in becoming a human being, and if Im going to italicize or increase the font of any word in these previous sentences, it would be BEING. I grew up not just feeling like Im not enough, but being actively told I wasnt. An A wasnt as worthy as an A+ with extra credit. Being able to strum tunes on the piano meant nothing unless it was accompanied by winning recitals (which I never did). Playing and doing nothing was not only a waste of time, it was definitive proof I was a lazy good-for-nothing. No matter what I did, I would never be as sweet or as smart or pretty as countless other names of other children/relatives/siblings my tiger parents would roar at me. So, I constricted myself. First in aiming for the perfect body, then the perfect career, the perfect life, the perfect dialogue, the perfect image that was altogether suffocating, because all of that meant I was never living for me or for the pure sake of joy, but for external validation that ironically also proved never enough. What Im learning here is that getting on a rusty bike with flattening tires to go down Kuhio highway towards a friends house where gorgeous rolling pastures surround either side of me with ever pedal I push, and simply taking that in? Thats enough. Learning how to drive stick shift in a two-toned beater truck that makes as much noise as the roosters cackling every morning, and having so much fun every second of it is enough. Accepting that I have only one or two friends here and a bunch of acquaintances, and being okay with it is enough. Serving such good food made with tons of heart, so that people often remark, This is the best thing Ive ever tasted! and making them smile is enough. Moving slowly to take this all in, because theres no actual rush to get anywhere and I am indeed living the life Ive always wanted, even if it looks very different from how I thought itd be when I was a young girl, thats enough. And, if I never write that book Ive talked about for over a decade, if all I ever do is notice the mysterious moments around me and the wonderfully full spectrum of awareness within me, and share that in writing anywhere (including here) or in conversation or however its meant to flow, then thats enough. I am seeing I am quite enough. And this way of looking at myself and at life? Well, it is turning out to be so freeing and fun!
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 00:11:37 +0000
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