A kinder mirror
Page 164 in Lisa Olivera’s Already Enough (no, I haven’t finished it yet) is the last part of section two of her book, which is all about moving forward from the places that have been holding us back. It’s a beautiful culmination of everything she’s offered up to that point—how to understand and let go of our old stories, how to write new ones, and how to rediscover and start living into our enoughness.
I was reading this page yesterday morning, sipping my coffee in bed, next to my husband. The kids hadn’t woken up yet, and we’d been talking on and off about different things that affected us in our childhoods. Even about how they might be influencing the way we show up as parents, and how those influences are affecting our kids. It’s important to note that we don’t have these kinds of purely honest and vulnerable conversations often, so it was an especially nourishing and beautiful moment.
As we kept talking and connecting, I felt a sense of calm and acceptance that was honestly a bit foreign to me. I typically feel like no one really knows or sees me, my husband included. But here we were, talking about things from our past, with no pretense, no agenda, just exploring each other, and the connection flowed like nectar. I saw him, and myself, in a different light through our conversation.
I want to know the WHY behind everything. Why do I feel and think the things I do? Where did it all come from? What happened back then? How am I carrying that with me? How is it affecting others around me? My natural instinct is to look backward and inward. He doesn’t much care about the why—he’s more of a WHAT guy, and his natural instinct is to look forward and outward. What’s happening now? What do I need to do next?
My husband and I have been together for 22 years, and married for 15, and this was maybe the first time that I felt like I clearly understood the different ways we process and move through the world. The things I constantly seek-out about myself, and my past, aren’t part of his journey. He’s not interested in knowing WHY, which is hilarious to me, because he’s an engineer and a believer in science over religion, so WHY is a core part of his process in other parts of his life. But it’s OK that he follows a different path forward. It’s okay. I don’t have to change him, and I don’t have to change me, either.
This peaceful, warm, comforting realization brought me back to page 164 in Olivera’s book for a moment, where she asks her readers to ponder the vastness of the journey she’s taken us on so far, and what we’ve learned about who we are:
“ So…who are you truly, underneath the old stories you’ve been carrying and sifting through? Who are you before others told you who you are? Before you got assigned an identity by someone or something else? Before the labels, roles, rigidity, masks, facades, pretending, covering up, hiding, contorting, fitting in? Before you began obeying the rules of who you were “supposed” to be? Who are you at your core?”
I started writing a list in the empty space on the page next to this passage:
Who am I?
Curious. Loving. Goofy. Infinite. Worthy of love. Intuitive. Sensitive. Compassionate. Introverted. Giving. Soulful.
“Curious,” I thought. “These are all adjectives. No nouns…no labels or roles.”
After pondering that for a moment, I turned to my husband and asked him the same question: “Who am I?” He answered with two words:
Smart. Strong.
I have been falling apart, and putting myself back together, piece by piece, over and over, for the last few years. But my husband…this man who has been there for all of it, even though at times it’s felt like I’m doing it alone, doesn’t see me as weak or broken. He sees me as strong. He recognizes the work I’ve been doing, even if he hasn’t vocalized it. He loves me because of everything, not in spite of it.
Even though I know there will always be potholes and setbacks, right at this moment, I feel like am getting closer and closer to loving myself because of everything, too.