The Life I Want (or Maybe I'm Already Awesome)

Maybe I already have the life I want.

My friend called me last night and said it was a better idea if I was the one who did the calling because I had such a busy life and she didn’t know when it’d be good time to contact me. I laughed. She said, “You so busy, you having fun!” and I was like, girl, who you talking about?

Because I struggle. I STRUGGLE. Every day, to varying degrees, I struggle. And I try my best to communicate that on my social media just as much as I share photos of my adventures. How can anyone look at me and think I have an enviable life? How can anyone look at me with anything other than compassion or irritation or pity? I don’t know how anyone can look at my life and think I have anything together.

She hasn’t been the only person to make comments like that. My pole journey is goals! My weight loss is inspiring. My writing is a gift. I do so many neat things. I’m always doing things. Uh, what?

I cry almost every day. I wrestle my brain over and over, often fighting the same painful, misleading thoughts from morning to night. I’m so broke, it ain’t even funny. I feel ugly, messy, needy, weak, and lost. My skin is dry and itchy and I’ve got cuts all over my body from scratching. My glasses are broken and I can’t bring myself to take them to the place to get looked at. I have a torn meniscus in my right knee so it hurts to kneel, to bend, sometimes to walk. I have trust, abandonment, and self-esteem issues.

But, maybe I already have the life I want???? Uh, what?

The thing is, I do have a lot of fun. I get to do so many great things like go for walks with friends, get shave ice, roller skate in a sparkly dress, high five Joey McIntyre, grab brunch even though I forget, go surf, watch high school football games and talk to surly old men. I started a new job that I get to walk to and from (thus avoiding traffic and the need for public transportation), and love my coworkers so far. I pole dance, have gone zip lining, finished a half marathon, earned my BA at age 40, and can recite the alphabet backwards.

I also happen to have an amazing family and super awesome friends. I have these really great kids and I’m so loved by my nieces and nephews. I’m broke, yes, and yet my family fricken comes through for me in big and small ways. I have SO MUCH love in my life. I am so very lucky to have this support system. People check on me every day, pay my bills, treat me to lunch, give me rides. They sit with me when I ugly cry, give me clothes and jewelry for job interviews. They thank me in the liner notes of their albums. They give me so much support even when I can’t offer the same in return right now.

And so maybe, even though I ride the strugglebus every single fucking day, I already have the life I want. A life that’s meaningful, adventurous, challenging, fulfilling. A life in which love and kindness are the currency. A life where every day I hear “I love you, Kanani. You are beautiful.” A life where the words I write and the stories I tell connect people, where I can make people laugh. One of the doctors today told me that I have such a warm and pleasant demeanor on the phone and it made him happy.

I don’t have all the things I want. I wish I had more resources (like money) and the job of my dreams (writer, in case you were wondering). I wish I had a private jet. I wish I didn’t feel scared and instead felt confidence. I wish I loved myself better, valued myself more, and knew myself more deeply. I wish I had a better body, a stronger body, a less-flawed body. I wish all your lives revolved around mine. Not really but kinda sorta, if I’m being honest. I want to be worshipped and respected and challenged and loved. I want to laugh more and cry less. I want to get angry without being afraid you’ll bail. I want to receive a love letter. I want a lot. Perhaps I want it all, in the famous words of Rilke.

But maybe I already have the life I want.

Side note: I'm not suggesting that my mental health can be completely healed if I could just recognize how good I have it. What I AM suggesting is that my friend's comment last night gave me pause. I thought she wasn't seeing things clearly, but maybe it's me. Maybe I don't see things clearly. That I may already have the life I want gives me hope because it's not that I have to reinvent who I am in order to be awesome. I might already be awesome and I just need to learn to see it.

Not This Time

Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, writes “We’ve been trying the same ways of getting comfortable for as long as we can remember, and yet our aggression, our anxiety, our resentfulness don’t seem to be getting any less. I’m saying we need to develop an appetite for groundlessness; we need to get curious about it and be willing to pause and hang out for a while in that space of insecurity.”

Everything in my life these days is in a state of groundlessness, and if you’ve heard me say that I don’t know how to be a person, this is why. Nothing is the same, least of all me. To heal, I gotta make different decisions, not just once, but every. single. fucking. time! I can’t just put up a boundary and then get to forget about it, no. Cuz now I gotta maintain it even though it's painful, even though it's difficult. Maybe one day those will be automatic, but today is not yet that day.

This state of groundlessness, this uneasy space, is so hard to exist in. I want to turn away, I want to return to the old patterns because they’re familiar even though I know how destructive they are. Chodron says to “think of this groundlessness and openness of insecurity as a chance that we’ve been given over and over to choose a fresh alternative,” and it is this “over and over” business that HURTS and it’s scary. How do you know this groundlessness will ever end? What if it never does? To choose this uneasiness over and over again, to resist the impulse of clinging to old patterns, can be so painful. It makes everything hard.

The habitual Kanani wants to pull away when things are rough and close her heart until she no longer cares. She doesn’t need you, doesn’t need this, she can take care of herself, fuck you very much. Habitual Kanani is only trying to protect herself because disappointment is inevitable. I don’t have a lot of practice reaching out for help and actually receiving it. I have learned that self-reliance is the only kind of strength, that needing anything or anyone is weakness and selfish, that anxiety exists because I haven’t yet figured out all the answers all by myself.

To keep my heart open to this uneasiness, to resist the impulse to pull away and to push you away, that’s fucking HARD. Even the so-called easy shit is hard. Everything is hard because there is no autopilot anymore. I can’t do things as usual. The BAU mentality perpetuates this cycle of pain and self-loathing, and I am SO TIRED of hating myself. I have to stop protecting myself (and, let's be honest, protecting others) at the expense of myself.

That means every single fucking time I want to pull away instead of move toward, that I want to act instead of feel, that I want to avoid instead of engage, I have to find the courage to say, “No, not this time.” When every cell in my body wants to do what it’s always done, pumping the brakes and then changing direction fucking SUCKS. Resisting that autopilot response is HARD. Every part of me revolts, screams, scratches at the door.

So when I’m curled up on my bed, bawling my eyeballs out, when I can’t even respond yes or no to a text, when I can’t for the fucking life of me breathe, just BREATHE, it’s because my body is devoting all of its resources to healing. And I’m writing today to remind myself that this is why everything is so hard, why I need so much these days, why I can be so confused about who I am. It’s not because I’m weak and stupid and lacking. I'm hanging out in this space of insecurity. Of groundlessness. I'm choosing a fresh alternative. And how fucking brave is that?

Can I handle my own shit? Am I smart enough, strong enough, resourceful enough? Absofuckinglutely. But I’m so tired of doing that. I’m so tired of relying on no one, expecting nothing, hoping for nothing, feeling disconnected from everyone. I don’t want that. No, not this time.

If you'd like to read some Pema Chodron, here's a link to the book I quoted in this blog: Practicing Peace

Here's a link to the book I'm currently reading: Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better