I’m reflecting on commitment to the gravity of life. I’m thinking heavily about how emotionally healthy people give themselves space. They give themselves space to see their responsibilities as (choice-based) opportunities for commitment.
We generally enter each “new year” hot and sweaty. We are in a hurry to be who we said we would be long ago. We’ve understandably lost steam as a collective. It's been a grueling handful of years. When we enter “new years,” we come with goals. Rarely do we follow through. “Resolution” is often a misnomer.
In my observation, if something is really important for us and meant for us, we get to it eventually. If there’s one thing I want to remind you of, it’s that taking up your mantle matters. When you stop resisting the gravity of your life, you build the strength to support it.
I’m young. I’m grateful for that. I have commitments. I also have a specific degree of “freedom” appropriate to those commitments. As I move into a stage of my life that features different responsibilities, I choose to commit to them. I am on the cusp of building my own family and my own home. I acknowledge the value in nurturance and subsequent growth.
Back to emotionally healthy people: emotional health is a fluctuating state. Emotionally healthy people are able to adapt to those fluctuations. When they make mistakes, they easily accept responsibility. When responsibility is accepted, a host of opportunities present themselves.
If you’re an adult and you “hate” your life or want to run away from home, you need to evaluate how you got there. You need to evaluate how seriously you take yourself and your choices. Have you taken up your mantle or have you resisted the weight?
I can’t think of anything better than building a secure foundation, centering it, and using the accrued restorative power for expansion. (If any of you know me or know astrology, you know I am Plutonic and Saturnian. This all tracks.)
How precious, how fulfilling, how replenishing it is to go home to the house you’ve built... The peace you’ve cultivated… The people you choose (continuously) to love… It doesn’t need to be roses; it’s deeper than that. That’s gold.
We get to have gold.
I get to have gold. I am continuously building my work, but the foundation is set and it’s never too late to bolster it. I am continuously building other aspects of my life. When I’m tired of building, I rest. And I get to remember that it’s gold. It is not a burden. It’s a joy to hold.
If there is a void inside you – of recent or more distant origin – you are probably not currently able to do this. You may see whatever gravity your life acquires as cumbersome. You currently do not possess or have not cultivated the strength to bear it. It is never too late to acquire that strength, but you have to choose to do so and work at it.
I’ve tried to be continuously frivolous. I've tried to be an easy girl, then an easy woman. It seemed simpler. It seemed happier. I have deeper, sustainable joy and more happiness now. I can register it now because it’s real and I am finally real. We all have to grow up. Think of it as growing into yourself as time passes. What a privilege that is.
I watch people complain about life, which is often warranted. I watch people disdain life. In the midst of all of this death, life looks like betrayal. Reject shallowness. Reject cynicism. Accept that you can be clear-eyed, feel things, and do what is yours.
You get to give your life weight here. Now. It can be gold. A warm welcome to 2022, and a great good blessing upon you all.
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