36
Every year I write one of these. The annual anniversary of my day of birth has never really felt celebratory to me, but rather a period of sombre self-reflection. Every year on this day I have all these thoughts of who I want to be and emotions of who I didn’t get to be.
This year feels different.
Last year I wrote:
I want to just be. I want to do things because I love to, not because they represent some path to some possible reality. I don’t wish to live for a future I don’t even know if I would have. I want to be me, to remember my nature before all that conditioning. — source
It seems like even though my wish for myself is to just be, it came with all these conditions and stipulations of how I should be. The past year was a year of acceptance. I stopped expecting myself to become someone I was not, even if the instructions was just be. I learned to accept that I was only human, that I was trying my best the way I could at that moment in time.
I am still trying my best at this moment in time. And that is enough.
Enough. Such a foreign word to us these days. My entire life was a coping with never being enough. Not filial enough, not studying hard enough, not working hard enough, not successful enough, not ambitious enough, not aggressive enough, not compassionate enough, not self-accepting enough.
Today. Maybe just for today, yesterday and perhaps a bit of tomorrow. I feel I am and have enough. I know I am flawed and can be selfish, but I try. And when I get tired of trying, I rest. Then I start trying again. Of all the complaints I could have about myself, somehow I always seem to try, to take that leap of faith, to lay all my cards on the table, to give that one last shot. I have taken so many last shots I have lost count. Perhaps the only way I know how to be alive is to risk it all and be on the edge.
Maybe things will change. But I have now. Now. I feel I don’t wish to ask for more. I have enough. I am no longer antagonistic with myself. I no longer look at myself in the mirror and feel exasperation. I stopped asking for the end of my existence. I still do, but much less. I can take much less.
I have someone whom I love and loves me. I have family, maybe not with the closest of family ties, but they no longer ask of me to be someone I am not. I have a handful of people in my life I can be truly myself with, who accept when I disappear into the ether because I need to hide, when I can’t be there for them in times when I am not even available for myself. I have friends who snail mail me stuff even though I am terrible at doing the same for them, who understand when I take months to reply because I simply want time and space to be thoughtful. Once in a while I get an unexpected message — that somehow they have been silently following my progress, or that an article or two of mine had been a source of comfort for them when the going gets tough.
It has taken me 36 years to learn that in life perhaps one of the hardest things to do is to be a decent human being to the people around us, in a society full of compression and oppression. After everything I’ve accomplished in my career I still get more joy out of a thank-you note because I have supported someone in their journey.
I am grateful I discovered this early enough. That I didn’t wait to read “top 5 regrets of the dying” or wait till my own deathbed to learn how I actually preferred to live. It is difficult and some days I really like the idea of having a lot of money, except I like the idea of having a lot of time even more. Some other days I feel totally alien pursuing nothing in a society with relentless pursuit of everything. I judge myself for being weird and I imagine everyone smirking at me, but I do it anyway.
I try to be me. I am still discovering who I am. Here’s the thing about taking the road less taken, there is always anxiety and fear, but somewhere along the way it just becomes the new normal. That to me is the power of humanity, throughout history we are really good at making new normals.
And somehow it has become a new normal for me to not want anything more. If anything I wish I can want even less. I wish I can wake up everyday and marvel at sunlight, feel immensely grateful I can feed myself pretty well with $2, that I am able to fall asleep every night without feeling my heart race for no apparent reason. I feel pretty good that I don’t fantasize about hurling myself in front of an oncoming car that much anymore, that somehow I have managed to actually enjoy some parts of this existence. Like love. Sunlight. The ocean. Friendships. Witnessing art and generosity.
Maybe my peace wouldn’t last, because society has a way of punishing people who want less. But I have now. On my 36th anniversary of the day of my birth, I cherish this rare sentiment of: I have everything I need, and it would be ungrateful to ask for more.
