Go placidly...

Today, my newsfeed is full of fear emanating around  a world I barely know. 

Over my coffee, on a cold, rainy and gloomy South Florida Sunday, I am taken back to my stint as  a child soldier of the Cold War.  Certainly, my earliest recollections of school include learning to skip, and sing, and the musty cloakroom where they checked us for chickenpox.  Fond memories of learning and playing and trusting.  But I also remember the scary world; the one where we were indoctrinated to believe the Russians were out to get us. School was our boot camp and there we were trained to take cover under our desks during air raid drills, to toss boos at the Russian Olympic athletes,  to arm our astronauts with prayers that they might conquer space first.  But being a soldier was scary. It was scary to be so scared.  But I stood up straight, looked straight ahead and tried to march with the rest.

Thankfully for me, my mom taught me so much more.  She took my face in her hands and lovingly shifted my gaze to the right and the left.  She showed me a home always open to those who needed a place to stay, a meal, a drink, a shoulder, a laugh.  She showed me friends from all walks of life, all countries of origin, all places of worship, which in the white homogeneity of Green Bay Wisconsin, was quite a feat. She demonstrated every day that love forms us, love unites us, love wins.  She taught me that I didn't have to be in march step with those around me.  

When I was a teen, filled with the heady belief I would change the world, my mom hung a poem by Max Ehrmann on the wall of my room.  Like the pledge of allegiance to the United States of America I espoused each day in class,  I recited this poem daily, my pledge to the world.  My pledge to me.  It gave me strength and courage and hope.

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.”

It still gives me strength and courage and hope. 

Forty years later.

Thank you Max.  Thank you Mom.

I cheated last night.

Why?  It was New Years Eve.  It was the last day of what was a challenging, scary, yet overall wonderful year. 

2016 was my year.  It was the year I embraced being alone. 

To say I loved embracing being alone is a stupid.  As stupid as “give yourself a hug”.  I’m sorry but you can’t hug yourself.  That’s not a hug.  That’s not the unconditional feeling of safety wrapped in someone else. That’s not the overwhelming letting go cause someone else has got you.  That’s not the “I don’t ever want to leave here” feeling you get wrapped in love. 

No embracing being alone is not the same feeling of joy as being with someone who takes your breath away.

Embracing being alone is strength.  It comes right from the core, and surges through every inch of your being.  It is the confidence knowing that you can do anything.   You can handle any situation.  There is nowhere you can’t go.  There is nothing you can’t do.  You see, once you learn to live with silence, no one talking in your ear, you can start to hear the thoughts in your head. 

Now that is scary shit.

I don’t know about you, but my thoughts often times are made up of the voices of every doubt, every fear, every criticism, every negative that ever swirled in my vicinity.  Like leaves taken up by a cold winter wind, they join forces and create a vortex of disapproval.  Individually, they simply side eye, but once they are flying together, as one, their cackling and braying builds to a crescendo of failure. Anxiety grips my soul in a chokehold. So I use the voices of companions to distract my hater thoughts while I run from them.

To be alone, is to face them.

That’s what I’ve been doing.  Facing them.  Hearing them.  Feeling them.

And it’s been really, really hard.  And scary.  And lonely.  And liberating.  And fucking incredible.

It started with the Beyoncé Formation Tour.

Remember the Superbowl half time show?  Poor woman got more exposure than Janet Jackson’s boob a few years before.  She was called a hater and the Miami police called for a boycott of her concert saying she glorified the Black Panther’s with her anti-police message.  The president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police is my FaceBook friend, and I heard it all.  On the other hand, SNL applauded “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black.”  Of course, as a political scientist, this intrigued me.  Here she was, finally finding her black voice, and she got all sorts of backlash for it?  I had to go to the concert.  Had to see if the police would show up.  Had to see the protest.  Had to be in the middle of it.  But no one would go with me.  Damn.  Another experience I would have to read about later. 

Or I could go. Alone. 

That was the scariest thing I ever did.  Who would I talk to?  Who would I dance with?  Who would I look in the eye while singing along? No one.  I had no friends.  No one wanted to be with me.  I was unloved.  Unlovable.  All of the fears of the last few years came flooding forward.  The divorce, the friends who chose him over me, the friends who didn’t know what to say so they hid, the bad dates, the flirting that ended in nothing more than dick pics …all of it began whirling into a hurricane of hurt. 

But this time, I didn’t run. 

I bought a ticket.  I went to the concert. 

“Up in the club, just broke up, I’m doing my own little thing!”

I was empowered.   There was no stopping me now.

I booked a 21 day tour to Spain/Portugal/Morocco and I went.  Alone.  I went to the full moon paddle board event.  Alone.  I went to the movies.  Alone.  I started cooking amazing food that I ate.  Alone. I learned to be.  Alone. 

And I discovered alone and lonely are not the same thing. I spent a year learning to live in the honesty of where my life was.   Accepting it.  Embracing it.

And then, on the last night of the year, I cheated on me. 

I ate a jar of cake. 

It wasn’t the eating the cake that was the juxtaposition from the year of authenticity I was ending.  No it was choosing the short term fix over the long term game.  It was in the attempt to deny that immediate distraction came with consequences.  You see, I’ve been journaling my food in an effort to live better, be healthier, control my migraines.   And I had already eaten my healthy level of carbs/fat/sugar for the day.  I have learned that exceeding a certain threshold results in an ice pick to my brain. But last night, it wasn’t about my brain.  It was all about my mind.  And my mind fixated on an unclaimed cake jar.  The one we loving made for a family friend who didn’t have time to see us over the holidays. It was a cake jar of love and it taunted me with how unloved I was. 

It called up the fears that had sparred with all year.  

Like a knocked out boxer who somehow struggles up from the mat, fists in the air, all my loneliness rose to taunt me from that jar. One last sucker punch.  It got me.  

I ate the cake.  

And now, on New Year's Day, my head hurts.

But it’s not a migraine. 

It’s a dull ache that is simply a reminder that as strong as I am, I am human.   It’s a throbbing that says the temporary ache of aloneness won't be stuffed down with food.  It’s the tension that reminds me that it is better to let go and feel the lonely rather than to hold on to the fear.  Choose feeling sad, lonely for a minute over hurt for hours the next day.  Besides, eating cake didn’t bring my friend over. It didn't love me. It didn’t even taste that good.

But it’s not a migraine.

Know why?  

I’m stronger than a year ago.  Loneliness only got off one little punch, it didn't take me to the ropes or bring me to my knees.  

I’m better than a year ago.   I only ate half the cake and then did something good for me....went for a long walk, alone.  And drank a ton of water to flush the sugar from my soul. 

So I have a take-two-tylenol headache.  I'm ok.  I'm more than ok.  Even though I do dumb stuff sometimes, like think that love comes in a cake jar,  and I lose the round, I'm winning the bout.  I'm strong.  I'm brave.  And I love that.  I love me. 

Sometimes I go off, I go hard

Get what’s mine, I’m a star

Cause I slay.

All day.

We gon’ slay, gon’ slay, we slay,

I slay.

Happy New Year.  Happy New Me.