Wherever you are, Be There

Who are you when no one else is around?

It’s a question I have been asking myself more and more lately. Maybe it’s the pandemic, shaking up the world and changing my routines. Maybe it’s the break up with Justin. Maybe I’m just getting older and tired of my own shit.

When I am at home alone, once the dogs are walked, once the lunch is ready for tomorrow, and dinner has been consumed for tonight…. what is there? A glass of wine is the easy answer. But that has lost its charm. Have a drink to reward myself, have a little chocolate, then just…. scroll the mental diversion sites on the internet, and soon enough, it’s time for bed.

Sleep.

Wake.

Repeat.

It’s not enough just to drift through the days. I am no longer content with just getting by. I have a stable job and a good dog and a modest house. (Well ok, the bank and I share the house, but their hold is less every month!) I have achieved the conventional markers of modest success, and yet I am feeling adrift.

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? – Mary Oliver

Perhaps for some it is enough to live life well and be assured a reward in the hereafter. I sometimes wish I could believe in the comfort of an all powerful being who has a plan and a soft embrace for weary souls. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised by such a thing later, and all my cares will seem so silly. Either way, I live a life of honour as I can, a reckoning I take up with myself, and myself alone. And in doing so, I must ask myself if each day is meaningful, if I live my best life every week. I cannot count on 99 virgins in the afterlife to sooth my every worry, so I must make these days count. Count for who, for what value? For myself, of course. This is the story of my life, whispered by the best orator of the tale, to the most rapt audience of one. We all end up in the same place, bearing the same possessions. So the destination is a given, is known, and so can be discounted. The destination is not changed by striving. It is the journey of getting there that fills my mind, that echos in my heart.

Journey before destination.

Who am I when no one else is around? No, don’t flee the question. Who? Does the anthem of my journey feed my soul? Am I fulfilled by my striving and story? If not, I am the best one, the only one, who can decide and change it.

Sit in stillness, accept the uncertainty. Examine the emotions, what brings joy, what dulls the mind? Turn my life towards joy. It is too short, too uncertain to do any thing else.