I am me
I am me. I am nothing if not entirely me. I am the sum total of all my parts. I am the sum total of all the things that have ever happened to me and of all the things that have ever not happened to me. (so are you, by the way) I am all of my thoughts, all of my feelings, all of my accomplishments, all of my failures, all of my attempts to get up again and again and again and all of my decisions to crawl under the comfort of my new cold and clean grey synthesized down duvet cover and hide for as long as i possible can.
I am all the people I have ever loved and all the people I have ever lost. I am every new york city cab i have ever hailed. I am every California Highway I have ever sped on. I am every man’s stubble I have wished him to rub against the space between my ears and my shoulders. I am every word I have ever written, every thought I have ever had, every tear I have every cried, every note I have ever sung, every laugh I have ever released into this magical infinite universe of possibility or probability. I am all of it and I am none of it. (so are you, by the way)
I am in all things and I am outside of all things. Lately I have been caught up in a swirl of thinking. Too much thinking. And I have never been more aware that action is my best medicine. And yet I find myself still stalled. Still standing frozen peering into the world I want so badly. The world where everything I have ever wanted waits, where it is literally waiting for me to claim. The world which waits for me to say yes.
Yes I am worth it. I am worth knowing how good it can really be. I am worth knowing how good I already am, as a person, as a me, on this planet who already sprinkles love and joy and light wherever I go, in my very nature. I am worth sharing that with myself and reaping in the benefits of knowing it as who I am. (so are you, by the way) Yes, I am worth the words I write, I am worth sharing them with you. I am worth sharing my voice, yes I am ready to use it, to sing it. Yes I am worth owning a stage, in a theater or the metaphorical life stage we all perform on. Why save it for a theater stage? Yes I am worth shining my light and wearing a slinky gown and having a man see me and drop his jaw. I am worth being swept off my feet by love. I am worth being swept off my feet by life. (so are you, by the way) Yes.
Yet, there I stand looking into this world peering in desperate to live there, desperate to twirl and laugh and dance and fall, completely unaware that just to the right or left of where I stand there is a door. A door which is waiting to open for me. A door that opens for me all the time in infinite ways. A door that I just get to decide to walk through.
Does walking through this door mean I never cry again? No. Does it mean I never hurt and only ever get what I want? No. Does it mean everything goes my way and I ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after? No. We all know that’s not how this world works.
But does it mean I get to live fully expressed and surrendered to the insane magic of this universe? Yes. Does it mean I get to live out the full range of experience and let myself absorb the richness of my own unique range? Yes. does it mean I was put here to live something out, and live it out loud and it is my responsibility to claim all that is waiting for me on the other side of that door? Yes. Does it mean that maybe I don’t get to know or dictate the how but that taking the very next step while knowing and loving and honoring and owning the me-ness of me, the me-ness of who I am in every single step, is all I actually need to do? Yes.
They say you can’t go home again. But I did. I went home. I stood outside of the elevator I spent so much time traveling up and down in, crying in, laughing in, dreaming in. the elevator that took me home to 15C. I stared at the door of the elevator I clung to as my mother and I moved out of that building ten years ago. It was there I became who I am. It was there my foundation was laid and I stared at the door of the elevator and realized perhaps for the first time how very beautiful it was. I spent a lot of time waiting for that elevator, and always it brought me where I needed to go. Always. Staring at the embellished dragons and gold lines I realized I was scared that leaving that place meant I was leaving me. Terrified in fact. Terrified that I would never again be taken where I needed to go.
Standing in front of it last Sunday, I realized that it was in fact in the very leaving of it that I found me. And there was something so calming about knowing it was still there. Knowing that in fact, I could go home again. I didn’t storm into a stranger’s apartment, I didn’t have to. In that moment, in those moments, in that weekend of letting the manhattan sidewalk caress the soles of my shoes, of letting the bitter october city air bite my cheeks, of letting the 13 year old’s torah portions land in my heart, of seeing my 81 year old father as a boy in church, in these moments, with tear filled eyes I realized, I was home. I am always home. Home is where I am because I am home. I am me. I am always being taken to exactly where I need to be. I am being guided by the musings of my heart (so are you, by the way). All I have to do is listen, listen to the me-ness of me.
I am nothing if I am not entirely me. I am the sum total of all my parts and I am primed. I am in fact in the prime. (so are you, by the way) there’s no better of a time than now. I can face the fears. I can fall down and get up and get up and get up. I am no longer scared of losing things because all things live in me. I can let moments go, people go, jobs go, material things go, I can even let memories go, ones I choose to. (so are you, by the way) I will not let me go though. I will not let the things that I am made of go. I can’t, they are in me.
I will keep my dreams, I will let them morph as I morph. I will keep my joy, my aliveness. I will use this world to affirm my yeses and if there is a no, I will smile. I will smile because no’s are after all simply redirects to more yeses. I will say yes to myself and no to others as often as I need to. I will relish and delight in every little thing that comes my way because that is how I do! That is who I am, it is who I have always been. I will release this idea that I have to be something I am not in order to receive the goodness of who I am. (so can you, by the way) It’s a crazy paradoxical insane belief anyway.
I will sing and dance and write and laugh and cry and kiss and love and run through doors as often as I possibly can. I will also rest, and stay still and not push and let myself be ushered through the sweet magic of this world. I will listen and I will act when prompted, when inspired. And I will do it all as me. It’s the only person I can do it as anyway. And I am not here forever. There is no more time to wait. I am ready.(so are you, by the way) I will let the gold embellished elevator door open as easily as it always did, just by pressing a button, by letting it know I am ready. I am ready to be me, the sum of all of my parts. And I love all of those parts infinitely and then some.