Beyond stillness

I started this blog because I wanted to write about the transformations that occur during this period of my life. I have always thought of life as a constant evolving process of change – on a molecular level and on a metaphysical level. A sort of restlessness to it all. Metastasis. Meta – beyond. Stasis – stillness. Beyond stillness. Something poignant in a word that normally describes cancerous cells exploding inside the body.

Beyond stillness. I realized, however, when I began this blog that even though all of life is beyond stillness, there are periods of it that are particularly metastatic.That restless energy that uniquely threatens destruction in its overzealous striving for growth.

That restless energy drove me to seek for purpose, for an abstract meaning to my life a little over a year ago. It drove me to Haiti the second time around. The third time around. Again and again, I think it will bring me back to these corners of the world. However, over the past six months, I have been captured by a different sort of metastasis in me that has been set off by several interpersonal relationships.

As someone fiercely protective of her independence and individuality, I think I was afraid to admit how much these relationships have taken out of me in their intensity. A part of me is still fearful, even now, of letting myself be transformed by the interpersonal relationships in my life. From them, I have learned these key lessons:

1 – True human connections are rare. They do not occur often in life. They are incredibly powerful when they do occur, perhaps due to their rarity. And they should be given the opportunity to be powerful and transformative. They are worth being vulnerable.

2 – Remember and appreciate the moments for what they are in those moments, not transformed by the end or by things outside of those moments.

3 –  Fulfilling relationships for me, in the future and in the past, have to came with enough space for me to be my own person. My “I” not completely absorbed in the “We” of the relationship.

4 – The biggest moments and relationships of my life have all occurred outside of my control. Perhaps it is exactly because they escape my rational, type-A need for control that they are my most catalytic.

5 – Life is full of trade offs. But as Gilbert says – “Everything that is worth doing is worth doing badly” – and I cannot regret the choices I have made even when they fail.

To be beyond stillness. Metastasis. The explosion – the straining – for something larger than me. I suppose it was never really possible without pain.