As an adult, I’m supposed to have things figured out, or at least that is the way it feels. I bought into the idea that I am supposed to take the weight of the world on my shoulders even though I still get lost and caught up in the interminable stream of thoughts that float around my brain. I don’t know if I am ever going to feel like an adult.
My youngest daughter just moved out and I still feel like a kid. Instead of having things figured out, I find myself seeking, looking, longing to feel secure. I crave the feeling of safety and security. I want to bask in it, soak in it, and revel in it. I yearn for it.
Because I am the one who can’t quite get it together. I am the one who falls apart at the seams. I am the one who can never get it right. I am the one who is never good enough. I am the outsider. I do not belong. I will never belong.
That is just how it is for me. It is not just the color of my skin that separates me. It runs deeper than that. The brand cuts through and sears itself onto my sofa. There is the scorch mark on the cushion that will never disappear. It is there for Shakespeare to see and to remark upon.
Friends, Romans, and countrymen see her failures. See how she is lacking. See the black mark that scars her soul. See the evil that underlies the pleasing exterior.
I am revealed. I am exposed. I cannot hide.
My fantasy is that I am invisible. I survive as an escape artist. That is my means of endurance.
I like to soften the edges of life and look on the bright side. I like to smile more than cry so having a selective viewfinder is very helpful. It ignores huge swathes of biology that are enough to make my snakes curl and hiss their songs of pirates into the froth of my macchiato latte that blooms into a disappearing lotus on the surface of my life.
Never mind, I’m just a kidder. You can’t trust a rascal like me. I’m a scallywag. I like to flit about hither and yon. Nothing is going to tie me down. Here’s the thing, I love life!
I love all of it! I love you! I love me! I love the parts that suck! I love the parts that are amazing! I love the variety. I love the change. I love that each moment is fresh and new and unpredictable.
It is a nail biter! Just a thrill seekin’, never-ending, drag race of sensations.
It’s a can of worms that has been opened. A Pandora’s box that won’t be shut. A miraculous genie who has magically appeared out of the golden lamp who never wants to return again to the cramped confines of infinite darkness.
But that is the destination for us all. Death awaits us. Death completes us. Death unites us. Yet I fight so valiantly to pretend it isn’t so, clinging to the known trying to figure it all out rather than risking letting go into the present moment of the unknown that is pure freedom but feared by the ego like death itself.
Rohini Ross is passionate about helping people wake up to their full potential. She is a transformative coach, leadership consultant, a regular blogger for Thrive Global, and author of the short-read Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1) available on Amazon. Rohini has an international coaching and consulting practice based in Los Angeles helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of well-being, resiliency, and success. Rohini is the author of the free ebook Relationships and the co-founder of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilding Community. You can also follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and watch her Vlogs with her husband. To learn more about her work go to her website, www.rewilders.org.