Lifeline
LIFELINE
When you no longer have deadlines–
1. Throw yourself a lifeline.
2. Borrow a leaky boat and row.
3. Get to the other side, across the moat of your murky longings.
4. Step out of the ivory tower you built, that empty, airless castle, the fortress of false dreams.
5. Stop doing the thing you loathe– find the thing you might love, even for only just a while.
6. Be aware of your shallowness, take the plunge, go deep.
7. Try.
Recall that you were once formed in a river, the womb of the feminine universe. You swam before you could walk, or talk, the flutter of your hatchling heart learning to match the rhythm of the unflappable pounding above. You felt safe, innocent, guarded, and when you cried – and you did cry by 20 weeks – your fluids prevented anyone from hearing you.
But the science suggests it wasn’t from pain – it was practice. Imagine that: you taught yourself how to cry – and even how to laugh – before you knew about the human condition with all of its fragility, treachery, drudgery, fallibility, levity.
Evolution embedded a need for you to self-express.
So don’t be the sea urchin at the bottom of the sea, awaiting victims with its bouquet of hardened, sharp quills. Nor the moth wrapped tight in its mummy cocoon, emerging from its dream of flight, always needy to return home. You are not a tadpole either, losing swishy tail for springy legs, knowing how to jump before you croak.
You are a river that lost its way, once tear-shaped, a freshie, a tributary, a rivulet, now meandering down the mountain, hearing every bone-tired creak, riding streams of consciousness flowing from fog-lifted mind, submerging grief, emerging wit, learning to crawl all over again.
Even the metaphors, you so hated, have all begun to click, make sense, have meaning.
Yet the ocean beckons: no turning back, no turning back, no turning back.
Then be the river that bends and meets others halfway, even as you brook no nonsense from them. Strain against the negativity that drains, the sarcastic tide, the fault-finding that is a projection of your past, washed-up, unfulfilled selves.
Yes, you can tell the real from the unreal, the authentic from the shifty drifters, even as time trickles by, but what you run from, fight against – your core fears – tend to linger, lurk, haunt, re-appear.
So give in, get up, remain fluid, share. You are the oasis you left behind. You are your own living sanctuary. Let go and let’s go.
NOTES: 1. Evidence that babies cry in the womb
https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/do-babies-cry-in-the-womb#meaning
2. Babies laugh and cry in womb