Just

It’s another day, and I’m enjoying it – enjoying just being me. Jeepers! WHAT is that ‘just’ in my last sentence doing there????? Is that the evidence of an old belief that little ol’ me, Lucy, is not worth being, that being me is a second-rate thing to do? I’m thoroughly shocked at what rolled off my finger tips right now, and sense a constriction in my chest and throat. But I’m glad that I’m aware that I’m noticing it. ‘It” feels like a discrepancy between what I’m feeling/doing and what I just wrote. Is it? Am I kidding myself that I’m seeing myself differently now, that I know and like and am really excited that ‘being me’ is a full time adventure/occupation/career/hobby and nothing to sneeze at or disparage or avoid? And that I’m not little, either.
Breathing is good, and right now, advisable!

. . . . . .


That was a huge movement! And at the end, I started playing with the word ‘just’ – just me, just being me, just right, just terrific . . . What an interesting, benign word in some contexts; and in the context that I construed it at the outset, it was pernicious. Just being me wasn’t ‘exclusively, purely, solely’ as it rolled off my fingers; it was ‘merely’ and somewhat apologetic and belittling. How Interesting, I sobbed to myself!

My father popped to mind as my breathing deepened. HE was a pro at considering himself ‘of lesser value’, and at keeping himself small, quiet and lovable. In fact he considered not standing out nor exposing himself to be ‘worthy’ attributes. He died at 68, having never given himself a chance to shine brightly; he produced wee sparks of life in moments when he felt safe and accepted; he otherwise kept himself small and silent; his friends and family loved him, but probably only knew a tiny part of him. And I grew up, not only to look just like him, but to be like him.

At Oceanstone in June, Amy was using her wonderful Reiki skills on my foot and, on the side (!) was able to sense my father’s presence in the room. It was an unexpected and welcome moment for me then; a first for me. It allowed me to express/feel/engage an enormous sense of grief that I had locked inside my body for thirty years. Over the weeks since then, I’ve been thinking a great deal about our conversation that night, and of my father’s importance in my life. The Emerging Futures conversations had brought home to me clearly that I am no longer willing to, and cannot – for MY sake, ‘keep myself small and puny’. My body knows this. One result of bringing my father’s spirit back into my awareness is that has the intensity and depth of what I’ve ‘signed on to’ grows enormously. It’s almost as if I’m growing more, being more, with him. And I feel my father’s encouragement and even pride that I’m doing what he never allowed himself to do. So it’s as if I have broken out of a shell/box (one with no air nor space to move and grow). There’s no guilt or shame, just a liberation and rejoicing. (Boxes are important parts of many Wel-Systems conversations I've had. Here they are again, today. Onion Layers!)

Having my father along for the ride, and having ‘announced’ my debut to the children this weekend . . . I feel pretty damn great! And big, too. I’m not quite the citizen of the world making a difference (those at the Emerging Futures will recognise the reference), but I see that my days of putting people on pedestals is over, and my days of being a full citizen with a unique and vibrant identity have begun.

So, if I go back to ‘just being me’ – I write the phrase without shock and dismay, now.
On the one hand, I still construe that phrase, as stated that way, as a second-rate occupation AND I feel strongly that it’s my old way of seeing myself. I honestly think those words will not roll off my fingertips again; that I will either drop the word just, or substitute it with really, totally, fully . . . . And soon, I think, I won’t even be writing about the novelty of ‘fully being me’ because it will have become how I move through the world at all times. My ‘roles’ of mother, wife, daughter, efficient woman and so on are losing their edges daily, I’m noticing, and MY true, own edges are feeling brighter and clearer minute by minute.

Blogging helps, but not as much as breathing does!
Both never end up where I think they will at the outset. And that’s so great, or do I mean that's absolutely JUST great?