Transitions are hard. Endings are hard. When I was younger and doing theatre I would get positively devastated about closing nights. I remember when I was twelve an older actor I did a show with saw me getting tearful after our last performance and said to me, "My darling, without closings you can't have opening nights". I've thought about this at many important junctions in my life. I am thinking about it now with closing of the show I'm doing lurking just around the corner.
I'm not only closing the play, but also closing yet another chapter of transition. With those closings always comes a rush of uncertainty. Being in my hometown to do what I love has been a beautiful means of making me feel lit up from within and valuable again, but it was also partially an escape from the uncertainty of what would happen next for me after "The Year that Miscarriage Built". Leaving home to do the play greatly reduced the possibility of jumping back into Baby on the Brain which also had the side benefit of keeping me safe from the fear of more reproductive drama. Now I have no more excuses other than to face the music and see what happens. If it works out then great and if it doesn't I will have to deal with that too. Spending time resisting the uncertainty of that is not doing me any favors.
I've been thinking about Buddhism a lot and the concept that trying to push negative emotions away only intensifies them. I'm doing my best to lean into the things I am feeling as a way of unlocking an even more present and mindful way to manage the fear of the next step. Our human brains constantly seem to seek zones of safety which inevitably fall apart because the world is inherently unsteady and uncertain. We spend so much energy trying to reconstruct our crumbling safety zones that we miss out on what is right in front of us. I am guilty of this pretty consistently. I am constantly grasping at the "right" path, the thing I'm "supposed" to be doing or feeling, or the comfort of a pattern.
Miscarriage (just like all traumas) tends to really hit home the message that "life is uncertain" (yes, thank you, I probably could have done without this particular reminder, but there you have it). The truth is, though, that the message of uncertainly is present even when things are going seemingly perfectly (and if they are for you please contact me so I can ask you how the heck you're managing that). The not-knowing is scary, but it is also what makes life an adventure. I'm about to step into another new chapter and it is wildly terrifying, but when things are the most terrifying they also have the most potential to be magnificent. Often I catch myself waiting for life to "calm down" or "smooth out" before I really get down to business. It's clear now that that's not how life works (in fact it's probably just the opposite). Life will always be unclear, bumpy, confusing, and wonderfully messy. I think its high time I did my best to make friends with that uncertainty so it works with me instead of against me. I'm about to endure the heartbreak of a closing wrapped in a closing, but I will try to keep faith that an even more spectacular and unexpected opening is around the corner. I will try to remind myself that the unforeseeable is not an enemy, it's an opportunity.
I'm not only closing the play, but also closing yet another chapter of transition. With those closings always comes a rush of uncertainty. Being in my hometown to do what I love has been a beautiful means of making me feel lit up from within and valuable again, but it was also partially an escape from the uncertainty of what would happen next for me after "The Year that Miscarriage Built". Leaving home to do the play greatly reduced the possibility of jumping back into Baby on the Brain which also had the side benefit of keeping me safe from the fear of more reproductive drama. Now I have no more excuses other than to face the music and see what happens. If it works out then great and if it doesn't I will have to deal with that too. Spending time resisting the uncertainty of that is not doing me any favors.
I've been thinking about Buddhism a lot and the concept that trying to push negative emotions away only intensifies them. I'm doing my best to lean into the things I am feeling as a way of unlocking an even more present and mindful way to manage the fear of the next step. Our human brains constantly seem to seek zones of safety which inevitably fall apart because the world is inherently unsteady and uncertain. We spend so much energy trying to reconstruct our crumbling safety zones that we miss out on what is right in front of us. I am guilty of this pretty consistently. I am constantly grasping at the "right" path, the thing I'm "supposed" to be doing or feeling, or the comfort of a pattern.
Miscarriage (just like all traumas) tends to really hit home the message that "life is uncertain" (yes, thank you, I probably could have done without this particular reminder, but there you have it). The truth is, though, that the message of uncertainly is present even when things are going seemingly perfectly (and if they are for you please contact me so I can ask you how the heck you're managing that). The not-knowing is scary, but it is also what makes life an adventure. I'm about to step into another new chapter and it is wildly terrifying, but when things are the most terrifying they also have the most potential to be magnificent. Often I catch myself waiting for life to "calm down" or "smooth out" before I really get down to business. It's clear now that that's not how life works (in fact it's probably just the opposite). Life will always be unclear, bumpy, confusing, and wonderfully messy. I think its high time I did my best to make friends with that uncertainty so it works with me instead of against me. I'm about to endure the heartbreak of a closing wrapped in a closing, but I will try to keep faith that an even more spectacular and unexpected opening is around the corner. I will try to remind myself that the unforeseeable is not an enemy, it's an opportunity.
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