Raw

I’m feeling utterly raw today. As if all of my coping mechanisms have been stripped from me and I’m just here, all guts and glory spread out across the town square on exhibition. The silent retreat forced me to shed all the bullshit I had woven around me like some great, colorful sari draped and wound carefully around the most sensitive areas. And being with girlfriends who were so willing to take me where I am peeled more and more layers back.

But now, here I am, back in the “real” world and I am just raw. Which immediately sends my mind into hyper-protective mode. Sending up whole new layers of bullshit decorated with things like sadness and frustration and defeat. And I can see them building themselves up. Growing around me like vines, slithering their ways into the cracks and gaps.

So I have to make a conscious choice to pull out the weed killer and the gardening shears to cut back those stupid interloping thoughts and mind tricks. And that is a hard choice to make. Because it would be easier to hide. It’s always easier to create some façade to hide behind than it is to just put yourself out there and be honest about who you are.

And mostly what makes it hard is that that honesty changes every day. Yesterday I was confident, honest, present, beautiful and powerful. Today I am just raw. Which means tears at some stupid commercial and lack of patience with my children and second guessing myself left and right. Of course all of that crap is just fear. I am every day who I was yesterday. And today there is fear. Fear that I’m too much for people to deal with. Fear that I’m on the wrong path. Fear that I’ll never fit.

It’s just fear. And as I’ve said before, fear only exists in the future. So today my mind is busy projecting itself into the future while the rest of me, the rawness of the real me, is scraping and clawing to hang on to today. To right now. To this moment. There is beauty right now and that is my chosen present.