They are happening. I am tracking them to see if there is a pattern. It seems like once a week I have a day of just exhausted collapse. This whole thing I’m doing, whatever that is… surrendering. “Free falling with God.” Not having a plan but trusting my intuition and following signs. Taking off to Morocco, again, with just a suitcase. Not jumping back into the expected, easily laid out path. All that. It’s beautiful and incredible and I’m so proud of myself. And there are days, and moments where it’s hard. And a lot. And lonely. And I’m tired and want a hug. Maybe that is one of the goals…not maybe…I secretly always have this goal…to find people I am going to be able to hug. Today I want a hug. It feels like a visceral need, and I don’t quite know how to meet it.
I remember a few of these days in the last few years where it was a desperate feeling, this need to just be held or touched by someone else. That’s another thing in our lives, at least mine that happens so naturally within it, that we don’t notice how big and important it really is. To be touched. Until it’s missing. One of the most desperate hug needs was when I was leaving Morocco, in the midst of the terrible year and found out my dad had coded from a voicemail (he was fine-ish at the time of the vm, the intent of which I believe was being used as a weapon…divorce is grand) and I was desperate and desolate walking up and down the corridor of the Lisbon airport, sobbing, looking for anyone who looked like they could hug me. I never found anyone. There was another morning in Rome in the most beautiful little hotel I always stay in because they have birds painted on their walls in periwinkle blue paint. I was alone in the breakfast room, light streaming in, at a big picture window like you see in movies looking out onto European boulevards, crying. The waiter came over and asked me if my coffee was ok. He knew I was struggling but didn’t know what to say so he checked on my coffee. I was working up the nerve…not nerve…but battling in my head with how appropriate is it to ask a stranger to hug you? And a foreign stranger on top of that. Plus, I cry like a five-year-old, completely uninhibited which tends to scare the daylights out of adults. But some days what you really need is a hug. I still haven’t figured out if it’s ok to ask a stranger. But if someone came up to me and looked like I probably look and asked for a hug, I would hold them. But I know I’m not most people.
I’m learning that I’m my own best person to know what I need…I don’t need someone outside of me to give me anything….but a hug, that’s a different story. Today I’m realizing I’m overwhelmed. I’ve walked about 20 miles the last three days, the last bit of that in 100-degree heat. I’m learning a new neighborhood. Going to yoga. Practicing a language. Not being able to communicate in my own language in most all outdoor interactions. Figuring out the grocery store and lugging it all home. Spending full days with two different families. More on that soon, it’s been utterly delightful and magical how it all happened. But to be on all day…paying attention to body language, reading faces and tone in addition to trying to communicate is exhausting. It’s like learning to be in the world. It’s no wonder kids need so much sleep.
I’m realizing I have a left-over side effect from my marriage; that if you are not being productive, you are wasting the day or yourself or I don’t even know what, just it’s bad. So, these days when I am running on empty and want to rest, I’ve been beating myself up for not being out there, not seeing, doing, writing, learning, etc. And that makes the day even more fun, to be alone in your house with a big bully.
Last week I asked my good friend, ChatGPT (that thing is amazing to talk to at any hour of the day), “What do normal people do?” Because that’s part of this too. Comparison. I think normal people just do normal things. I don’t even know exactly what that means, but I assume most people have an easier time moving through life than I seem to let myself have. I don’t know anyone else who’s done something like this — thrown themselves completely off the map with no real plan, just a hope that something will feel aligned. Most days it is beautiful and incredible things are happening. And today is hard. Chat told me that part of my problem is comparing myself to perceived normal. And judging myself for it. There is that judging myself thing again. That lots of people wouldn’t even think to do this…. “Because it’s extraordinary.” It is not ordinary what I am doing, and I sometimes long to just be doing something ordinary. It seems like it would be less painful or lonely or uncomfortable or internally claustrophobic. But I don’t understand how to do it differently than I am.
And isn’t it ok that some days are hard? Not every day in my “regular” life is easy and wonderful. There are hard days in every life. I’m not supposed to be having the time of my life every minute. How would I learn anything? I think what I need to learn right now is how to allow myself to have the days or hours or moments that feel heavy, that feel like struggle. To just be with the feeling of it. To hold it and say I see you, feeling, until it doesn’t feel so heavy or painful. To say to myself it’s ok to stay home and knit today; the world is not going to end. Morocco is not going to disappear. The signs will not stop coming. You will still meet your people. You will still find your path. And you will handle all of it better if you’re rested. How long do you think until I’ve learned this lesson?