I want to be understood
There is something pulling on my heart today. It’s big. It’s pulling hard…
I spent years wondering why I was here. Feeling like I was lost in some kind of emotional tunnel. Dark. Deep. NO way out.
The pulling on me was no match for my pushing against it.
Success eluded me. I was always…. just…. right…. there. And then poof, it would pull a Houdini and vanish on me. Sometimes, I wouldn’t know when to expect it again. Others, I sat and watched for it…. Waiting. Quietly.
Like a mirage in the desert, always thinking I saw it or knew where it was.
Figuring if I was quiet and still perhaps I wouldn’t scare it away this time.
I couldn’t really define it… this success I was seeking. It kept slipping out of my hands like the balloon string on a windy day.
I wasn’t sure of what I wanted. That was clearly the biggest issue.
I was cloudy.
I wanted but didn’t know what.
I desired but felt empty.
It pulled. I pushed.
We didn’t get along.
Then came the accolades and awards. All the stuff success was built upon in so many people’s minds… The applause, the “can I get my picture with you?” or “Coach Jen, will you sign my ball?”
Who are you asking?
ME? …WHY ME?
I didn’t get it.
At all.
I was trapped in this feeling of success being about what others thought of me.
I was living a daily horror story of a life I didn’t really want and one I figured just wouldn’t end well.
If I could count how many times I said these words…”I have worked so hard…. When will my chance come? When will I finally get a break??” …It would be in the hundreds. I often wondered why I was destined to feel like I didn’t belong anywhere. Why I worked hard and felt like I wasn’t getting any traction.
Autographs and pictures and applause don’t fulfill me. They never will.
I needed more. I wanted more. I desired more.
It wasn’t fame and fortune that could all be mine that drove me. It still isn’t.
I think success is in the soul. It’s in the connection I felt with others. The eyes that look deeply into mine and respond simply….”I just want to be understood.”
Yes. I often thought…. “Me too.”
And maybe as much by myself as by those who look into my eyes and see the guidance they tell me they feel.
My heart has felt full. It has also been emptied in ways I struggle with knowing.
It has ached and yearned and called out for more.
It has recognized that I am more than I allowed myself to me, or sometimes felt I was capable of, or even deserved.
My heart has led me.
Often times correctly, sometimes haphazardly, but in any case, it has led willingly, never boastfully or needing praise.
It has always been my one true guide.
All of a sudden I had a need to stay true to my heart. Regardless of anything else… I was to follow it. Right, wrong or indifferent, my real understanding was that if I followed it, it would never be wrong.
My head overthinks and pushes.
My heart corrects it with feeling the pull.
I pushed, it pulled.
Some days, it was an exhausting fight trying to do both at the same time.
I found that doesn’t work too well.
Pieces of me would break off, like splinters in the old rail out back.
They hurt when you get too close. The harder you squeeze, the more the splinter drives in. The pain, a physical reminder of the fight that continues inside.
So what of this success? Can I call it by name? Who’s battle does it become?
My inner warrior was continuing to push. To try to MAKE things happen.
I have to know when to let go of that push and allow the pull to take over.
My measure of success is no longer in my head. It’s not a fairytale or a movie plot or a story that has a happy ending.
In fact, part of the beauty is that I won’t know the ending until it comes. That day, I hope far away, will be the day I can answer the question.
Why am I here?
Simply to push and pull.
To let go and allow the magic to unfold.
To find ways to create what I desire, not by pushing, but by allowing.
The only push I want to feel is the consistent drive and desire that comes from within. It’s not mandated by thought.
It’s formed by the inner gratitude I have found when all else has failed me.
I have pushed. It has pulled.
From now on, I will only ever push on the ocean.
The strong, powerful, vast ocean.
The possibilities of a world surrounding my gentle hand.
The embrace of something so much larger than me.
There, I will feel the tide pull me out to sea.
Set adrift in the ebb and flow of life.
And yes, seeking to understand perhaps maybe more than I seek to be understood.
The water is strong.
It pushes and pulls me in.
My raft is stronger.
I allow it to take me where it will.
I understand now.
I am understood.
