I have a thing about floating. Obviously, a lot of people do or they wouldn’t have those awesome float places. As a sensitive person, sensory deprivation is really good for me from time to time. The girls and I have been swimming once a week at the Y all summer. A lot of our summer rhythms had to be re-thought with COVID in mind. I’ve been surprised at how much joy and rest that hour has come to provide through all the turmoil that is 2020. Cue the memes.
Yesterday, the jets were on and I spent the whole hour letting them push me around the pool. I don’t know about you, but this year has felt like a lot of pushing. I have felt swept away and pushed around again and again. My plans, my expectations, my ideas have just been shoved out of the way to make space for high levels of unpredictability and frankly, chaos. I imagine many people have felt this considering the global pandemic, national race-related protests, and the current fires all over the west coast. Not to mention personal losses.
I tend to be a person of strategy and vision. My intuition makes me the one in my family and in my relationships who often sees the bigger picture, the long game of life. One of the deepest losses I’ve experienced this year is the inability to hold onto a larger plan, a longer vision than the here and now. In some ways, I think this loss has afforded me the space to really be present. It has also felt incredibly disorienting and discouraging. I’ve felt lost a lot and that is not a common feeling for me.
And so, releasing myself to the experience of floating in a pool of great turmoil, with the roar of the jets in my ears, truly felt representative of what this year has been for me and for many. The process of submission to chaos was surprisingly, a relief. Trying to fight my way through the wild, to control it and box it in for my own sense of safety and well-being, is so exhausting. And this year has shown me, sometimes is really, really doesn’t work.
What I felt when I was floating was this sense of being held up. And I think that has always been my desire when I release control, when I stop trying to manage everything. I used to think that holding up was a God who controlled and directed everything in my life. I used to believe the tropes about everything happening for a reason and God not giving me more than I can handle. Removing those bumpers (or you could call them blinders, but we’re a bowling family), I found myself being held up in a way that felt truer than ever, more honest than I’ve ever been to myself or the One that I still believe in.
No matter what happens in my life and in my world, if even the worst things I can imagine happen, I can trust that with community and self-empathy, with the resources of the love of God and the beauty of nature, I can find my way, my God, my self, and love still.
It takes a village, so to speak, to process true tragedy. But humans can do it and do it well all the time. We can hold all our feelings and not judge them, not stifle them, not let them ravage us in a way that leaves us terrorized, but to truly give them a voice and let them teach us. Let them teach us about ourselves, God, life, and others. As Glennon Doyle says, pain is our greatest teacher.
I want to release myself to the fullness of life. That doesn’t happen if I spend my time fighting the chaos. The full human experience includes a shit ton of pain. I want to experience the wealth of my emotional depth, not just the “good” ones. I want to live in a way that embraces this process rather than constantly trying to manage myself, my life, and my circumstances.
What if even the worst possible things happen and the sun continues to rise? My sun here in the Pacific Northwest is a ball of neon fire right now in the midst of a very smoky, stinky sky. But it keeps rising. And so will we.