June: The Opportunity to #Rediscover

Detachment, Rediscovery, and the Adventure of Finding Me.

I’ve moved houses at least 6 times in my adult life. Half of that time, I did not have any plans to move houses. But I did. Very soon, I will be moving again. Just the thought of packing, unpacking, and repositioning my furniture and personal belongings is daunting, the actual work even more so. It’s tiring to keep organized, so I make sure to sift through all of our stuff prior to moving, discarding what can no longer be used, what can still be kept, and what can be of better service to someone else. The process of ruminating, contemplating, and forecasting something’s purpose and worthiness to occupy space can get very interesting, albeit exhausting.

A faux leather jacket once used for travel has started peeling. Those things were never made to last in tropical weather. I was so sure I was going to travel to a cooler climate sooner or later, but the pandemic -- and everything else -- happened. It’s going to get thrown away. Too bad. It was the right kind of army green that matched nearly everything in my wardrobe.

I sorted through my old craft boxes and found my stash of semi-precious stones, still strung together in the original nylon they hung from in the hole-in-the-wall shop I bought them from more than ten years ago. I had forgotten how I used to love making bead bracelets. I’ve never been dexterous, so creating something that isn’t half bad with my hands felt so satisfying. It didn’t matter if anyone else thought that they looked pretty or trendy, I just liked laying the stones out, threading them through, and finding just the right bead to use to hide the knot of the elastic string that I would secure with clear nail polish. When was the last time I allowed myself to create something without caring if it was any good? Maybe one day, I will be able to afford the time to sit quietly and make bead bracelets and necklaces again.

We own a lot of books. My daughter’s books alone fill up eight of the largest cargo boxes available. She has already downsized significantly, and to be fair, so should I. I go through my little library and find a couple of Osho’s books; gifts from different occasions. Why did I hold on to these during our previous move?  I used to quote Osho in some of my writing, carried away by his inspiring excerpts. But reading his teachings as an entire body of work, I just could never wrap my head around it. I now feel so confused by his thoughts and find some of his philosophy, when interlaced, slightly contradictory, if not overly romanticized. Not to mention that one chapter begins completely disconnected from the previous chapter, and I feel so disengaged moving forward. His written work has been so widely admired that maybe I kept them, thinking that I had to like them too, or that I could take them in smaller servings, or if given enough time, I would also find appreciation for its entirety.  I still don’t. It’s not for me.

I am slightly overwhelmed by the number of boxes in my storage right now. I will need to get them sorted out soon. Because I knew that our latest move was going to be temporary, I only unpacked the absolute necessities. Everything else remained sealed. And now I am thinking, If we have been able to live half a year without those things, why did we decide to keep them in the first place? I’m sure that upon boxing them up, I deemed them important, but they’ve remained boxed up for nearly seven months, and we’re doing just fine in their absence. I wonder how much of the stuff inside them is still worth hauling in our next move. Maybe I’ll find something like those semi-precious stones: forgotten but still fond of. 

Also, I wonder what remarkable differences there will be between the person who packed those boxes and the person who will be unpacking them.

Looking back, I realize that through every move and every transition, the things I needed and wanted to surround myself with also changed, because I was constantly evolving. And it’s easy to attribute it to the change of circumstances, but really, what was developing was me.

I am the one constantly changing, reshaping, and perpetually rediscovering the versions of me that need to stand in the front row of the moment. I could go back and forth between versions; whichever facet it was of me that I thought needed to take the lead could step into the forefront. There is the loud or the quiet, the unbridled or the withdrawn, the organized or spontaneous, the objective or the romantic, the soft or the guarded; they’re all there. They’re all me.

It’s just that when a version of me is demanded by the moment, the other side can get subdued, and sometimes, I allow it to fade in the background longer than it should. The force of habit and the rhythm of the daily grind can be blurring… we forget parts of us, until an opportunity to pause and recenter presents itself. Does that make for inauthenticity? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. We don’t have to be just one thing or the other, do we?

I reckon that it’s not about being swayed to be this or that, but about honoring the transformation necessary to get through. Sure, there are non-negotiables in character and principle, but the translation of those in the way we live can mutate. I have always believed myself to be a weed. I will thrive anywhere, I will reconfigure and resettle, and get comfortable wherever I go, so that I can grow. If I cannot find wriggling space, I will allow the wind to carry me away. It’s not about changing what grows. A weed will never be an orchid. It’s about unearthing the parts of me that will best get through, and embracing the complexity of human nature.

I am very gradually trying to learn to detach from concepts, belief systems, spaces, preferences, and predilections that attempt to categorize who I am. I can shift. I can change my mind. I can like something now, not like it tomorrow, and like it again the day after that, and not feel like a sham. I find that permitting myself that kind of fluidity has served me best. Do I lack conviction in my humanity? No. It’s just that I no longer think it necessary to have an overarching or philosophical explanation to justify my evolution, other than it’s just easier to change me and nearly impossible to change all other things, people, and circumstances that are not me. Maybe I don’t want to be incarcerated in a neatly labeled box for my comfort or anyone else’s anymore.

When stepping into a new space, I have now grown brazen enough to ask myself questions like, “Do I want to be here a while, or is this place transitory? What is necessary right now? What do I want to surround myself with? What must I become in this moment?”

Always, the answer varies, and sometimes I surprise myself. That is okay. Just the fact that I now allow self-inquiry already makes me feel like maybe I’m getting somewhere because not too long ago, there was a version of me who wouldn’t permit it. God bless that version of me, though. She was who I needed to be at that time to survive.

I have found that there is great satisfaction in the constant pursuit of the present self. The bravery to peer inward and the willingness to make space for whatever it is we find grows us. With the world ever-evolving and with us ever adapting, our becoming as humans is constant. I would like to keep getting to know who I am turning into, if only because I am my only companion in the end.

Consistent curiosity makes for a better acquaintance, useful in understanding how to fill our own cup. In that way, we know that what we grow to hold love, fulfillment, and joy in the adventure that is life, is something we can always bring with us.  And while we wander through the earth searching for purpose or meaning, or just the next destination, the most fun treasure to hunt for, I think, is the self--- over and over again.

I need to find time to carefully sort through those boxes.

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