568 Words of This and That
It’s been a long two months. In the last 60 days, I’ve traveled to six different cities (one of them multiple times). I went from out of practice packing a suitcase to assembling the essentials and getting out the door in 30 minutes flat. I’ve gotten adept again at queueing to board, strategically picking out a seat, using a flight to be productive or to zone out. I’ve gotten accustomed to landing, to arriving in a new city, to making my way to rideshare or rental car or train.
My spirit swirls when I travel. I try to keep it grounded and with me. But it swirls. It darts into back alleys and makes extended trips to the past. It loops back to me and rests, only to zip away again when I am running for a plane or emptying my water bottle before security.
When I am in (at least) two places at once, I am divided. I am here and I am there.
At the same time, I am always working to be present in what I am doing in each place. I am shutting out distractions in the room and grounding into my heart. I am intellectually and emotionally supporting the clients I am present with. I am balancing relationships and bringing home the bacon.
All the while, I am arranging rides back home, I am picking up the phone to tearful daughters or friends. I am sitting down to plot out the focus in my business.
In the midst of this, there is the deeper me. She’s often just hanging on for the ride.
“Hi,” she says when I look in on her.
“Still here,” she says calmly.
She doesn’t get impatient. Just more and more quiet. She’s waiting, but in my harried state, I have no idea what for.
As I travel on, she holds the mounting emotional detritus of my everydays.
Stating the obvious: it’s a lot of pressure.
I feel a lot of pressure to hold it all together. The pressure is from within: I am an emotional center and absorber. (I reflect back and help people process their thoughts and emotions.) And, the pressure is from without: the world and its demands (money, groceries, dry cleaning, doctor’s visits, project deadlines).
We have so much pressure in our daily lives. Life is expensive in many ways. It takes its toll.
This love note does not come with some big revelation or comforting thought about pressure.
Except if you understand the comfort of acknowledging.
I am acknowledging the pressure that exists in my life.
And so, I am acknowledging the pressure that exists in yours.
I am a warrior. One of the shadows of being a warrior is that we keep going. We don’t stop to fester over this wound or that. We triage and move the hell on.
I probably spend far too much time warrior-ing past the sores the pressure exacts.
But not today, not right now. Today, I sit in the pressure and accept that it is here and not just because I want to move past it.
I ask it to come in for a visit. I acknowledge how it has made me wonky and demanding, critical and strained.
I wait for the question that might come after the acceptance.
Maybe you can too.
Or maybe you’re in a moment when you need to warrior on.
Either way, I empathize.