Sweet Idleness. The Sweetness of doing nothing.

If you look at my life from the outside, I am sure it’s a fantastic view. I have limitless options. I choose my direction like a kite in the wind every morning when I wake up. I have everything I need. I do anything I want. It’s almost perfect.

But the inside… I am never enough. And I have realized it doesn’t matter how many houses I own or jobs I have or How Very Much I love some one, there is nothing I can do to be enough. And because I am not enough, my wings are clipped. I am not limitless. I live in a prison of inadequacy.

I asked the universe, one recent afternoon as I lay curled in the fetal position in such intense pain I really thought I might die, what would I have to do to be loved the way I love others?

The universe answered me:

NOTHING

I realized the people I’ve loved the most deeply did nothing and could do nothing to change that. I loved them for who they were regardless of what they did or didn’t give back or provide for me. I understood that I would have loved them just as deeply (and in many cases, did) even if they only gave me hurt in return. Because I SAW them. I loved them for the soul I saw. Even if they never saw me back. But there is nothing they could do to change that. To change me. And so, there is nothing that I need to do to be loved. Someone, someday, will love me regardless, and perhaps even more because, of my inaction. Dolce far niente.

I see that I have to get to the other side of trying. Of working, of “persevering”, of believing and hoping that I can somehow earn my place. The space that I occupy.

Truth is, I don’t have to. It’s my space and nobody can move me from it til the good lord sees fit, although I’ve begged him to see fit on many dark days. I’m learning to not give up my space. To not shrink to a size of convenience or accommodation for someone else. To no become a ghost in my own life out of deference for others. I am beginning to understand that if I can get past the idea of earning love, I can live unapologetically and open. And maybe I still die alone, but the fear of rejection and abandonment and NOT BEING GODDAMN ENOUGH, can subside when I understand that all the trying and stress and anxiety and “commitment” (i.e. insanity) and devotion won’t change whether I am loved or not. My actions cannot make someone love me any more than their actions made me love them. So I can chill. I can accept the fate of The Unloved until, in spite of my lack of striving, somebody SEES me. And even likes what they see. And loves me, the way I love others. With my luck I won’t really like him and hence the pain of the universe cycles.

Emotionally I’m desperate for affirmation and acceptance and attention and connection. But I’ve been working on denying myself those things. Some days that goes better than others. Luckily I have very few places to turn for this since I deleted TikTok and most of my 1000+ FB friends seem interested in my philosophical tailspins or even whether I even take my next breath.

I’ve been having physical chest pain that scares me. But I know it’s just this. It’s a broken heart that I’ve kept under the compression bandage of survival for so long. Years? Decades?

It can’t be cured. It will never heal. But maybe it can find space to at least beat again. Dolce far niente. Just be.