My Backpack.

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Dec 13

For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable through Love.

Habit Hack Episode 22.

I have written 5 different THE SHIFT versions for today's episode...I guess there is much simmering in my mind...or bubbling in my heart...or swelling in my soul...

For me, writing is processing. Writing is stretching. Writing is reaching. Writing is uncovering. Writing is confronting fear. Writing is patience. I have written many words- well, because I have 42 years of stuff I am carrying, and that stuff is getting burdensome to keep holding, and so it is sometimes exhaled into words.

I have carried all my stuff in a backpack. If I had to picture it, it would be my middle school into high school purple L.L. Bean backpack, circa 1993 classic version with the reflector stripe across the front. I loved that thing. But I have noticed this backpack in which I carry all the stuff is quite old, and the material is fading, pulling apart at the seams. As my backpack becomes more worn and torn, the stuff is just falling out. And as the stuff falls out, the backpack becomes lighter. And as the backpack becomes lighter, I feel a sense of ease, a freedom from the heaviness that has been strapped to my back, pressing down on me, as I've walked through days and years carrying... all of it...

I think at first, I was upset at the torn fabric of my backpack- I probably tried to sew it up, and keep all the stuff contained neatly in my backpack. I saw little holes, and then split seams, and then full tears. And my stuff was spilling out. Some was stuff that I didn't know I even carried because it was packaged up as other things; and as the packaging unraveled, I saw the stuff for what it was- fear, guilt, clinging, grief, panic, loss, abandonment, shame. Also unraveling, were sentimental clingings- deep connections, shared households, lost pets, holiday gatherings, old traditions- that stuff was falling out too.

I have found, that as I write, I loosen my grip on the stuff that I carry. And as life unfolds and I am confronted with hard things, my backpack is filled only with things I choose. I realize that what I want to keep in my backpack is, in essence, Love.

Love, in the powerful force that is really the only solid frame in the uncertainty of our human existence.
And it is that way because we choose it.
Sometimes life feels so vast, and we feel so small, and we take it all so personal, that we just keep holding onto all the stuff in our backpacks, without the sense that we can set down some of our burdens.

I go back to Jack Kornfield's teaching on "Did I love well?"...
"The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are the moments when we touch one another. This simple and profound intimacy is the love that we all long for. Mother Teresa put it like this: “In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”

I will do the small thing of sharing my 4 other versions of today's writing at some point, as the unfolding of life continues to bring small glimpses of clarity, and then muddiness, and then connection, and then uncertainty.
Life is like that.
We really just don't know.
But, what I do know, is Love.
It is bigger than even knowing.
And it is staying in my backpack.

Love through it all,
Jessica