I should have suspected that my research into wholeness would challenge my own sense of wholeness (or, as it happens to be, my brokenness).
Today I see again the disharmony within me—between the old me, my memories, my experiences, my regrets and the me today. As I stood washing dishes, my own fear began speaking, threatening that today I am not where I should be, at 28 years old.
Twenty-eight.
(Hmm…seems so young typed out like that.)
I took the washcloth, drying my hands, and moved into the living room. Sit, facing the openness of my living room, and feel so unsettled, so disappointed.
My eyes come into focus and, for the first time, I really see the big circle on my carpet—a visual reflection of the longing in me at this moment. Go figure. Of course, I’d go out and buy a carpet with a circle on it. At the time, it was a little off-putting, a little too geometric for my taste. It’s a fuzzy, symbolic sliver of hope that snuck its way into my home. Oh well, it was there anyway…if I’m honest.
Truth is, I’m afraid. Afraid that (by the world’s standards, by the state-of-everyone-else-my-age standards) I am behind. No, worse…a failure.
(Ug, I shiver that word off of my tongue, shoulders and legs.)
And, well, I very well might be. And probably am…because my life does not match the chronology of a good evangelical Christian woman’s life. I’m not married, I haven’t had any children yet, and I don’t have a ladder-climbing job. I don’t have any pets, I work as a barista (which, I’m convinced, Seattle is the only place that job is actually esteemed).
So, what then?
My mind wanders back to the image in front of me: that damn circle. The circle that’s kept me running, kept me hoping, seeking, moving for it’s sake. I want wholeness, I want balance, I want harmony. And my journey into those things have taken me off the “college, marriage, kids by the age of 30″ path.
I certainly feel the longing for those things in my life, not as superimposed undetected cultural expectations living in my psyche, but as my true desires for my life.
Mirrors don’t work when you’re looking into someone else’s life to understand yours. Measuring your life by someone else’s choices, things inevitably don’t add up and one or the other of you get deemed the failure.
What if my journey…was my journey…
Can I not glory in the person I am, inviting all of my past into me, to inhabit every cell of my body and speak into my presence now, today, as I stare at this circle…
And even when that effort fails, can I remember, then, who I am a part of…of someone holy, of someone kind, of someone whole and good, of a creation that is called, “My Beloved…”
I don’t know. Some days that seems like a lot to believe.
And when that fails, maybe ts okay that all I can do today is stand up, go back to the sink, turn the water on, and finish washing the dishes.
