Dear A — Want

Hi you,

I said this to you yesterday amidst the zillion minute-long voice messages I sent. Good gawd, who can say anything succinctly within a minute? Clearly not me. Well, I can if I’m ‘checking in’, in fact, those people, who gather in circles to ‘connect’ but then go on and on and on and on and on and on an on and on about how they don’t know what they are going on and on and on and on about just to tell you ‘where they are’ in this ‘moment’— you know who I’m talking about — I want to throttle their run on sentences and tell them: Guess what? You are NO-WHERE, and there’s no such thing as connection in drivel.

I don’t say that, but I think it.

She’s a mean one she is.

I’m not mean, I’m just impatient sometimes.

Actually most of the time.

So yesterday I asked you to think about what you actually want.

And it’s a question for me as much as it is for you.

I find myself noticing as I look around my life that I can truly ‘do’ anything. I’m almost 50 and for the first time I think I can be really honest with myself and say: You did this. You made this. You earned this. You went out and got this. In the arena of things you can control, you always get what you want.

You always wanted to live by the ocean. Bingo. Done.

You wanted a family, a marriage, dinners around a big-ole table your children will remember, talk about and probably re-create for themselves. Bam. Done it.

You want to look good in a pair of jeans. Yep. Handled.

You wanted a career you can die doing, knowing in your bones, you are made for. This. What you do is a call inside of you and you live it completely, wholly, with complete abandon and people pay you for it. Whammo. That big sucker of a tall order is now happening too.

You want to survive. Well fuck you universe. That damn list is checked daily.

You wanted to make money. You wanted to know you could. Yep, that happened.

And then you wanted to know every dollar you make is real. It has integrity. It is honest and you can stand on it because it is earned with truth and respect and honour. You want to be honourable. This is taken care of now too. Well done.

You wanted to feel love. Okay. Yes. This has happened.

You didn’t want all the pain that came with it, but you do know what being in love feels like. You do know what giving love feels like. You know how to touch someone with nothing but love in your fingertips. To not need anything, but just pour love out. You know how to hold a gaze to the point of terrifying discomfort because you are willing to see, to be seen, to be known and to know. You know how to risk now, and you know how to kiss. You really do know how to kiss, but it takes two.

And you know how to love.

You also know how to stay because your faith in someone is bigger than theirs. Often you have stayed too long, and you are still learning this one. But you can say without question, you know how to believe in people.

And you do.

You know how to heal. Cancer, depression, marbles shattering across the floor. You know what this instrument of your being is, and you know where you are in any state of disarray. You know how to heal this being of yours. You may resist it sometimes, but you do know.

When you are still, you remember. Bam bam bam bam bam you got this.

So now that fifty is coming, and I know what I know, and I think I can say I do know that shit. Like I do.

What do I want now?

And I asked you that too.

What do you want?

We can fucking have anything. We’ve already had everything. So what do we want now?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a list anymore, I just have pictures. I just have moments in my head. I just have what I think is true but may not be, but I trust it anyway.

Here’s what I want.

I want to read the paper, like a physical fucking newspaper, in bed, with coffee on white sheets. I want my legs to feel the cotton comforter and I want to be able to slip my toes over to another pair of legs. I want a life of reading the paper in bed as many days as feel just right.

I want to wrap up in big blankets and write to God with a rock face at my back and a beach at my front. I want the wind to make my nose cold. I want to write until I’ve heard the words I needed to hear, and then walk back up the beach to my cabin by the sea perched close by. I want it to be warm inside when I walk in. I want a kettle to put on the stove.

I want to sit quietly on an airplane, or a train, or in a car and just hold hands knowing we’re going somewhere. Anywhere. I love to travel. I love knowing the world is that close.

I want my body to be inflammation free so I never have to give up running in the trees or along the water. This is a hard one for me because I think my diet has to change to have it and I’m a little bit pissed off about it. But I still want it.

I want to laugh.

I want to laugh.

I want to laugh.

Safely.

I want to dance. A lot. I fucking love dancing.

I want to dance.

I want to dance.

I want to dance.

Safely.

I want to earn money softly. I want to fall in love every time I work, like I do now. I want to feel that stirring of devotion every day I show up. I want this to continue forever.

I want my children to know I am there. With them. Always. Forever. I want them to never feel the need of me. I want them to know I never left. Ever. Even when I die. I have never left them, and I never will. I will teach them to feel me, to hear me, to be held by me, no matter where I am. I am always there. I want them to know what love feels like.

And I want to be loved too.

I think the biggest cliff of desire my legs dangle from is that one.

I want to rest in someone who is willing to rest too.

I can’t go out and ‘get’ that one, but I can trust it is here for me.

Usually I don’t.

But my romantic heart believes, even when my broken one does not.

Everything else I can go out and ‘get’, but this one I just have to wait for, and as I’ve said, I’m kinda impatient.

I suppose that’s the gift of life isn’t it? There’s nothing to do but wait for it as if it was always there.

And I believe that.

It actually is and has been, always there.

So what do you want?

I know the career thing is super big for you right now. I know it’s wrapped up in your purpose and an undeniable experience of fulfillment. I get the sense it’s the biggest part causing you the most unrest because you think you have ‘control’ of it, so ‘for fuck sakes A… just figure it out’. Am I right?

To that love, I say: Rest.

I say: Listen.

I say come at it backwards and not so head on. Look where head-on has already taken you. You know this road. It’s not bad or good, it just generates different results. Come from behind this time. Walk backwards. Grab a fucking pogo stick and jump this one. Or climb the trees along the way. See if you can walk this path without letting your feet touch the ground, the way we played tag in the playground as kids.

You will always make money, you are fucking brilliant at that. So what does the work you want feel like? Where are you the most ‘on-purpose’ in your life? When does time stop? Where you are so fucking dialed in to whatever your body believes in that you lose that too? You know, where your physical self just drops away and all you can do is just do the do you are made for?

And if you don’t know what that feels like, I call bullshit.

You are passionate.

You feel shit.

You intuit things.

You have music in the way you breathe. I know this in you. I saw this when I first met you. Music and words are where you fucking become.

And the skills you’ve acquired along the way are going to serve you, so you don’t have to think about them. We don’t get this close to 50 and not be able to finally fucking trust our brains. You likely don’t need any more skills. And I say that lovingly… I totally recognize you LOVE learning too. So yes to learning and no to hiding. K?

Everything you’ve done is going to intersect somewhere… it always does. So come at it backwards. Look at it from above and below. Let the answer you’ve always known fucking bite your ass so hard you can’t sit down in the same chair anymore.

ouch.

I want an ouch for you.

And I love you.

Like I just do.

I fucking do, and I don’t know why, and I don’t care about the answer to that question either anymore.

So what do you want my dear A?

What do you want?

Because I believe you can have it.

xxxT

p.s. I want…