Hi my friends,
I hope you’ve found some time to recharge and rest. It is Saturday evening right now. I am writing to you after a 3-hour nap. My brain feels refreshed.
I’ve never been able to abide by a regular schedule that’s reinforced by the society or culture I was/am in. My sensitive nervous system dictates how I operate. I remember having to take sick days off school just to sleep. It is a miracle that I survived university and graduate school.
I remember hating myself for not being able to move fast. I remember feeling like a defective human. I remember having low self esteem and constantly trying to catch up or change myself. I am blessed with certain intelligence that helped me get by the intensity and pressure from all the schooling in China. I am also blessed with the level of sensitivity that will shut my body down when I push myself too hard. It is like I have an internal alarm system that stops me from trying to be someone else.
I asked the question of “Why can’t I do that?! We are all human.” constantly. I measured myself with other people’s rulers. I was miserable and depressed. It took me almost a decade of work to accept myself as I am. The work is not done. I am still working on practicing self acceptance and being kind to myself when I feel raw and rejected.
It is human to want to belong. When the larger society is moving at a pace that’s unsustainable, it feels like I am standing here all by myself, alone, and moving at a pace that will never match the churning of technology. I feel left behind and my fear of being abandoned gets reenacted on a regular basis. I want to slow down. Standing at the crossroads of choosing to fit in or being who I am, my nervous system has made the choice obvious.
I’ve said it before. My depressive episodes often have a flavor of god-send after I regain some sense of self and equilibrium. This most recent one made me unable to plan way ahead or feel guilty about taking care of myself. I am living in a way that I’ve never lived before. I watch myself saying “ I need to take tomorrow off.” “I need to be by alone for the whole afternoon.” “Our needs are misaligned. I like you but I can’t date you.” “ I am just hurting and I need to scream.”
I am choosing myself. I now see how much and how often I’ve abandoned myself to make sure others are okay. How much I am putting other people’s needs above mine. How much I want to be liked and how much I pleased people around me. The amount of effort I put into avoiding conflicts. How many times I’ve slienced myself because I think my needs are too much and not valid. How much opportunities I have robbed myself and people around me for a genuine and loving connection.
I want more being in my life and less performing. That feels scary. But I want to know what it is like to be me and let others know and experience the real me. I want to be loved as I am. I am practicing to be more honest and communicative. I am inviting my truth forward. I am forgiving myself as I go, everyday.
At the TAS check point in Seattle couple weeks ago, one of my bags was checked. The agent, a tall black man, asked me to open a green tea cake I bought. He’s trying to work through the queue as fast as he can. And there I stood, struggling to open the plastic packaging for the cake. And his supervisor, with scary looking tattoos and a stern face, was breathing down our necks. The agent couldn’t help me because I have to be the person who opens the package, in case of any unforeseeable danger, i.e. what if this cake is a bomb. My face turned red from trying to open this sturdy package. To his boss’s surprise, this agent went to find a pair of red scissors and helped me open the cake.
The moment of truth: the three of us stood there and looked at the small, dense, green cake, opened, innocent looking. “Okay. It is for real a cake.” said the boss. Then he went away, so did his stern energy. The agent looked at me packing up. He was surprised by the speed that I was moving at. I noticed his shocking face and said “ I am slow and can only do one thing at a time” He snapped his fingers as he said “You gotta learn to move fast and to multitask. This is the American way!” I smiled and kept at my pace. After what must have felt like eternality to him, I was ready to leave the TSA area. He smiled and looked at me and said “ Slow and steady wins the race.” Then he went back to the craziness.
My heart felt a tinge of uplift during that special moment. He smiled and acknowledged that it is okay to be me, to move at my own pace. I don’t know if I am ever concerned about winning the race, I thought. I am concerned that I will miss the whole point of living: to love and to be loved. I know I want healthy love and safe and genuine and warm relationships.
I know there is no guarantee in this life. And that’s the precise reason why I want to find out what it is like to let me be. To surrender, to turn my life over to God. To try and believe that God loves me and wants the best for me. To open my palms. To pray. To listen. To receive. To be.
Sharing this with you delights me. Tell me what delights you.
Until next time,
Xiaoyu
