Remembering What Endures

Lao Tzu + Pema Chödrön

Hi! I’m back! Thanks for sticking around during my break which was partially for personal reasons and partially for art reasons. The two are quite connected, you know.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and well, I suppose I have some things to say about that. So far, this year has been another year of hit after hit. The main two hits are that I’m still not pregnant after almost two years of trying (and two miscarriages), and there is an interpersonal group issue that has been taking up a LOT of my time and emotional energy. Then last week, our dryer broke and we had to buy a new one (cha-ching!), we got an unexpected medical bill in the mail (cha-ching?), the crawl space under our house is having major moisture issues and we’re going to have to do some big-time updates down there (cha-ching!), and I literally just found out this morning the brakes in our car need to be replaced (cha-ching!).

But the interesting thing is that even with all of that going on… I feel good. In fact, I kinda feel better than I’ve ever felt before. But why? Nothing is going my way! Nothing is working out, nothing is going well, nothing is easy.

I’ve been aware of this seemingly contradictory feeling for a little while but was confused by it. I should be feeling bad, shouldn’t I? How am I handling all this? Then, the other night I stumbled onto this passage in the book The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman:

“He was ready. The whole business of getting kicked out of Fillory had been good for him. It made him tougher, more grounded in reality, to the point where he could deal with getting kicked out of Brakebills. He was basically homeless, and getting increasingly less respectable, but he knew who he was and what he had to do.”

And then it all made sense! I used to think that if I could just make life easy, everything would be good. That easy was the goal. But now that I’m a mom, it has finally, belatedly dawned on me that life is never going to be easy.

And instead of that breaking me, as I suppose I thought it would in the past, instead of the constant feelings of “I can’t handle this” or “this is too much” or whatever other depressive thoughts rattled around in my mind… I’ve accepted it.

I’ve accepted that life is full of obstacles and hard things and there really is no solid ground to stand on, because as soon as you think you’re comfortable, something changes and everything’s different.

Maybe even more than accepted… I think I might be embracing it.

Life is nuts. Life is never easy. Especially with a toddler in the house! Everything is hard for a toddler, and therefore, everything is hard for me. But I’ve also learned from said toddler, that even though everything is hard, and even though it feels like the world is too big and sometimes scary and sometimes too much… it’s all still pretty awesome.

Over these past 3 years I’ve proven to myself again and again, that I actually can handle a lot more than I thought. Things keep coming at me and instead of letting each one knock me down again and again, lower and lower, I have somehow, magically, amazingly, developed a more helpful attitude.

Sometimes it’s a more “oh ho, bring it on” attitude, with sassy hands on the hips (also learned from the toddler). But more often, it’s a patient “it is what it is” attitude.

I know there’s a stigma for my generation right now around religion, and that many people believe it leads to living in another world or living with your head in the clouds. But for me, it has had the totally opposite effect. Going to church, being a part of that community, reading Buddhist books, and studying religious art has grounded me in this reality. It’s repeatedly reminded me what’s important, what’s helpful, what’s destructive, and what, in the words of Lao Tzu, endures.

“Be completely empty.
Be perfectly serene.
The ten thousand things arise together;
in their arising is their return.
Now they flower,
and flowering
sink homeward,
returning to the root.

The return to the root
is peace.
Peace: to accept what must be,
to know what endures.
In that knowledge is wisdom.
Without it, ruin, disorder.

To know what endures
is to be openhearted,
magnanimous,
regal,
blessed,
following the Tao,
the way that endures forever.”
– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

In another passage in the book The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman, the character Plum brilliantly describes the depressive mindset that was so familiar to me in the past:

“Her depressive tendency, the flip side of her manic streak was stirring. Why were they even doing this? it wanted to know. What a waste of time, of effort. Of pencils. Plum neeeded to get moving, but she was having trouble attaching meanings to things; the meanings kept peeling off like old stickers.”

Dang, that’s good, isn’t it?

I think I’ve been handling more than I thought I could lately because I’ve been able to tap into this something that is so much bigger than interpersonal issues or dryers or crawl spaces. Something that won’t ever peel off.

Something that endures.

Thanks for reading y’all.

<3,
Christine

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