on the importance of being

for nearly all my life, i have neglected allowing myself the time and space to simply be and let things be. i would control and calculate…

for nearly all my life, i have neglected allowing myself the time and space to simply be and let things be. i would control and calculate nearly everything in my life such that it could be boiled down to metrics and could be optimized; every task written and listed into neat steps, every inch of my calendar blocked off down to even when i would sleep… each second and minute and hour and day and week and month and year was to be calculated and planned.

but worst of all, this meant everything could always be better.

i could always do one more task. one more pound lifted on the bar. one more experiment run. one more sentence written. one more page read.

if only i worked more weighed less slept more ate less did more got distracted less
 if only i was better
if only i was enough.

this is what i was truly telling myself by operating like this:
that i was not good enough. and i would never be.

and it was this void within myself that would eat me alive at night and leave me lonely to decay to rot to die. and when the morning sun rose the same void would erupt into such an endless desire and drive to fill it that it burned like one thousand suns.

i was drained yet ravenous. i was so hungry for something that could never be filled. what drove me to wake the next morning was the same thing that made me sob in the depths of night. i fed myself the gluttonous empty all consuming void of self hatred.

but over the course of these past two months, i learned to be.
i have learned that i am enough.
it did not come all at once. but gradually, it came.

it came when time would hold its breath yet simultaneously rush forward to let me write what ebbs and flows ever so fluidly within my being.

it came when i first looked at tasks unfinished at midnight closed my eyes and hugged myself so tight the oceans within me squeezed out.

it came when i walked this city this state this country this world without purpose or direction but intuition and awe.

~

it came when i rested my head on 
the wooden box cascading in
varying tones of maple brown
that housed my father’s ashes

and for the very first time the words that echoed within my head were 
you have always been enough.

and this is how i learned to be. in the stillness came movement. in no direction came direction.

and that is how the void of emptiness desire pain hatred hunger
of relentless ambition driven by desperation
came to be whole compassionate complete love satisfaction 
of boundless energy grounded in stillness

this is how i learned to be enough.
this is how i learned to love myself.

this is how i learned to be.
to be my self.