I am a proud Mama this week. Not of my actual kids, I mean I am always proud of them because they give me so many reasons to be proud, but this week and today I am proud of you. I am proud of how far YOU have come. I am proud of the work we have done together. Yep, even if we’ve never met.
I sat with you, you know who you are, and you told me about the man you have been seeing, and how well he treats you, and how he sees only good in you (and there is so much good) and you told me about some really hard things that you have never told anyone, not even yourself. A thousand pounds lifted, right there. I remembered you last year, feeling so out of control and lost, and how you could not make it five minutes without apologizing for yourself. And this time this year, you are investing (instead of drunk texting) which is almost a poem. And when I say drunk texting, well you and I know you were the BEST at it. You took it around all four bases and swung a home run. How do I love thee let me count the ways I will cut you into pieces and hide you in the floor boards kind of good. And now? You are expecting the full meal deal, instead of living inside abuse and violation. You are Julia Roberts in the last scene of pretty woman, telling Richard Gere he can take his gazillion dollar apartment and shove it up his attorney’s ass, because you are ready to value yourself at last and won’t settle for less than equal partnership, and then there is an actual WHITE HORSE, being ridden by Richard himself, to your barred window, and hookers everywhere get educations and make better life choices. Yay, Hollywood! You thanked me, because as you said it, no one was able to help me before you, and then you went on about me, and I was like, really, I feel so fucking lucky to be able to help you. True dat.
Lucky. Is that it? Hashtag blessed? I am not humble with a view to winning the good people working toward sainthood reward. I don’t want y’all turning to your partner or your kitty kat or your hamster, and saying “Bob, this woman is the next Mama Theresa”. But it is important to me to remember that these crazy, amazing game changing things we do are not because I am a saint, or Catwoman. Don’t be silly, that is just a part time gig that I do anonymously, and it hardly pays for the kitty ears and the tight leather onesie. Miraculous miracles happen for bigger reasons. They happen because of you, and some boss angels who get their wings and a referral fee from me whenever we keep you off the Jerry Springer circuit or spring you out of your own personal witch hanging tribunal.
It’s an electric feeling. Really, like something moving through me, powerful and sacred. Not yogurt that I left out on the counter too long. More like holy ghosting. Whispers and goosebumps and all the tiny hairs on your arms raising toward the ceiling.
I don’t ever want to forget that. I don’t want to just say, Ya, I am amaze balls and breath polish my finger nails. I don’t want the credit for the amazing things that YOU, do. I want to be the agent of a strength greater than l’il ol MOI (Miss Piggy voice here) and discoverable in you, along with the bag of smarties you ate last night while binge watching The Marvelous Mrs. Mazel.
I am proud of you, too. Would you just look at yourself in the mirror? Where is the cloud of hate and fear that swept you in my front door six months ago? How is it that you can be sitting across from me with an extraordinary new career that we swung three months before your severance was up, killing it and moving your way on up, to the East side, without losing anything, not even your dignity or your hamster’s personal masseuse, and in this shit economy? You said to me, “How can we go from healing my heart over a loss that shouldn’t let me get out of bed in the morning to nailing my performance review in the same week?” You had a meeting with someone from your past and coolly coached them toward a better path. They were in awe of you; that you weren’t a train wreck, and that you were thriving, and that you ARE so good. And you know what? I always knew it. I always thought, whoever gets their hands on this dynamo will have the missing ingredient. I know now that we are going to steer you ten steps past your comfort zone and that this time next year you’ll be running the place. We just keep elevating you, and then proving to you that you belong in the celestial places, after all.
And you, who went from my most accomplished relationship saboteur, often breaking up with men before the first date, to rocking it as a stepmom and wife-to-be. You told me this week how you lied in bed fuming mad at your honey for saying yes to the invite you told him to say yes to, actually encouraged, and that you ”looked within” *cues pan flute* and realized that your anger had nothing to do with him. You were lonely and had you asked for support he would have given it to you. And so you didn’t attack him. And your pain resolved. And you felt really damned good about your beautiful, hilarious self, who lights up the room when she walks in the door. Like I am laughing on the inside before you even speak, but you are also so kind and strong. YOU ARE A SUCCESS STORY. You are thriving in a healthy relationship. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR, RIGHT? Maybe a fist bump, friends, for my friend.
And what about YOU!??? You stayed in what some of us would call RADICAL trust and you got all Zen in your life, and you were patient and compassionate and WHAT THE ACTUAL —that thing I said was going to happen, even when I had to dig deep deep down to the center of the earth and plant my feet in the bedrock to stick with you, and not tell you to RUN every other day, well that thing, HAPPENED. Our trust paid off. And I jumped up and down. I cued the choir of angels. I drank a bottle of Champagne. JK, I am waiting for you to drop by with it. But please text first, ‘cause like I can’t come to the door if I am blogging in my jammies.
I am proud of you for talking about your feelings. At all. With a GIRL, no less. I mean I am not really a girl when I have my kitty ears and superhero cape on, but I dress like one so it can be confusing. You had really really good reasons for cruising through life without looking in the general direction of an EMOTION, for the love of all things good and beautiful. And yet you were right to want something more for yourself. I know that old voice hangs out on your doorstep, telling you that it’s all too much work and that it’s safer in your head where there are rulers and facts. But also, there are less parties there, less cake and less balloons. Kudos to you, for giving it a try. You probably don’t realize how much YOU actually deserve. Feeling good requires feeling. The answer is in the question. I am proud of you for dealing with your shit, and for letting yourself be vulnerable and for taking charge of your emotional life. You deserve to be helping you, first. That is the real relationship you’re creating. The other one is just and extension of it. A mirror for each other’s good stuff. Well done.
I am so proud of YOU, for trusting, not me, really, but just that someone, somewhere was in it to help you and that maybe this time you would see a difference. I felt that, deeply, and I took it to heart, and now you tell me that of all the gazillions of self help and fancy therapists and programs you have done through the years, nothing has brought you this kind of peace. Amen to that, because, friend, you went through some shit. And you are one brave unsung hero, with a pretty astonishing resume of anonymous kindness and beauty.
I am proud of you for leaving that super important job, because you know what —it wasn’t for you anymore, and you had already given it your 333 percent before the caffeine and Adderall (I know you don’t really take Adderall). I am proud of you for choosing joy, on behalf of everyone everywhere. What a simple idea, yet it’s shut down, over and over by our villain, The World. It’s a big deal, because you give it to everyone around you, and you do it with gentle strength and compassion. You don’t need a title to be a leader.
I am proud of you for getting up every damn day and loving your kids a thousand percent; for caring so much about fairness and kindness, when you knew it was gonna get you a hundred toxic emails delineating all that you do wrong, with extra special attention to the business about your incompetence in all areas. And yet you choose love, and magic, and nobody’s sick can diminish it. You are Christmas, my friend. You are the star on the top of the tree. You put the twinkle in the lights.
For changing your patterns, loving yourselves when the easier thing to do is pile on the blame, for teaming up with all of the invisible others to choose the love you deserve and the love that you are. We are a force against suffering and smallness. When we are healed we are not healed alone.
It’s not a warm fuzzy. It’s not an aww shucks. It’s more like a portal. Which sounds all new agey and shit. But I am as wowed as you every single time it happens. It feels like angel wings brush my cheeks, Mother Mary blows on my brow. Doves take flight after a long night rehearsing for a Prince video; the swish of white sweeping skyward, snowflakes falling to earth on a diagonal wind in the dead quiet of winter night.
WE DO IT. You and me, minds and hearts joined.
I know we can. I KNOW that underneath the stupid hurtful things we learned, that there is a hella better way to go about it. And I know that unworthiness and confusion can be unlearned.
When you have someone it’s easier to be brave. Knowing I am here every week, in your inbox, over your cell phone, or sitting across from you sipping a diet soda makes it easier to do the thing.
I know. Because you make me brave.
You are my friend.
That feeling I am talking about is LOVE. I’m thinking the transcendent John Lennon kind, but without the tie dye and psychedelics. I really feel it. I see past your exterior, and your history, and all of the layers and layers of your complicated onion, to that glowing you in the center. That REAL you. Unencumbered. Unhurt. And then I get all glowy too.
Every time you ask for help, and every time we trust together in something greater than the sum of our parts to lessen hurt, it’s there.
So to those of you who have been pouring on the thank you’s and accolades, out loud or in your head, it’s my turn to thank you. For letting me be your someone. It’s hard to say no to all the bullshit that hurts us. But when I do it for you, and with you, well it gets easier and easier for all of us.
Turns out, in the voice of Bill Nighy (aka Billy Mack), that you crusty buggers, are the love of my life. JK you’re so not crusty. You know those Youtube videos with all the puppies surrounding the little boy, jumping all over him and licking his face. You are the puppies. Please don’t lick my face though. No seriously stop. That’s gross. Do you know how many germs are in the human mouth?
You rock. No you do. No you rock more. You rock like AC/DC.
I am going to wait here in my jammies to be assumed by a ball of holy light, like Mary now, and I have you to thank. Hark… I think the light is coming. I see thousands of hamsters running free in meadows of daisies with babbling brooks. My day timer list is empty? Wait, there’s grandpa!
Merry Holy Time of a non-denominational sort.
Much love,
Erin
P.S. Stay tuned for my Holiday Survival and Gift Guide with all kinds of ideas and some super steals from me.
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