Wednesday, May 21, 2008

In Spirit and with Courage

I'm coming off a month old study retreat and I'm terrified. I feel like I've forgotten to be kind and I feel like I've forgotten how to create. I did the hard, necessary work of burning away everything that didn't fit me any longer and now I'm fetter less and free- which means I'm fetter less and free. Oh shit!
I know my terror and sense of free floating angst is a natural part of my transition and that nothing is wrong. I know I can start slowly with small blocks of creative play, as little as ten minutes. I know to let myself moodle with paints and words until something small emerges, and to tend that with love and non-judgment... And you know what else I know? I want to be rescued.
I want to have a lightening bolt of assurance land in my head from the clouds... assurance that everything will turn out to be OK. That there is a thing called perfect husband and there is another thing called perfect job and all I would need to do is try hard since the time I wake up every morning and leave it all to Allah just before I fall asleep every night.
It's so easy to overlook great people around you. People who have a mound of problems and people who are desperate, and yet kind. People who create, who inspire; who make you want to love life. I need one of those few people to remind me again. I need to be reassured again.
Only I wouldn't listen. Because when we have vanquished the many demons that stood between us and our renewed life, when we feel almost home free, the mother of all demons pops up: the someone-would-tell-me-what-to-do demon. The just-give-me-direction-and-make-me-safe-demon. The I'll-do-anything-just-so-I-don't-have-to-hang-out-in-the-not-knowing-anymore-demon. If you, like me, would also like to be friends with the last demon try one of these ideas:
  • Use any and all means to turn within and listen to your own desires, your own wisdom, your own ideas.
  • Pour over your journals and look for clues to what you want.
  • Pray for guidance.
  • Ask yourself many times a day, "What would I love to do next?" Gently stop yourself every time you go to watch TV, buy a new book, paint, or ask a friend what you should do- even if it's as small as what to wear to class.

5 comments:

Abdul Basit Khawaja said...

hey,
this world is not perfect, there is no such thing as a perfect world or husband :D..but this is wt life is ... full of compromisies..

Noor Ali said...

I aint hearing from u nowadays, why so?

Quietude N said...

life is all about you and how you want it...

Sathish said...

We'll enjoy inspite of what may come... (that includes husbands, jobs.. and more..)

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