Hi, reader! Abby here, I’m grateful to be the new Office Manager at 1N5. Thanks for spending some time on our blog.
We are always becoming. It’s a beautiful reminder about our shared human experience, acknowledging that we are dynamic individuals; that we are malleable, we are impressionable, we are wildly adaptive, we are capable of transformation and growth.
Allowing the space and the grace to be brutally honest with myself, (and really, maybe for the first time), I acknowledged that my sense of identity and self-worth was informed only by how I thought others perceived me. Further, I had somewhere along the way subscribed to this idea that I was only worthy of being perceived if I could attain perfection. So I threw myself into saying “yes” to anything that was asked of me, because saying “no” felt disruptive to my pursuit of perfection. If I could busy myself with tasks, deadlines, and obligations, I could minimize those softer, more quiet moments where my body was screaming at me, begging for change.
Acknowledging my own needs felt selfish and unproductive. I found myself fronting: attempting to curate this version of “me” that I decided was acceptable for the outside world to see. I allowed myself to slip so far into being of service to others that I forgot what it looked like to be of service to myself, too. Enter, guilt complex. What would it look like to start saying “no” after being all too familiar with saying “yes” – even at the expense of my own well-being? How could I ask for help, when I was always the one helping others?
I didn’t know how to identify my own wants or needs, let alone communicate them to those who tried to infiltrate this fortress I had created to block out what I had decided was disruptive to my pursuit of perfection. I was running on fumes, complacent and unfulfilled, exhausted and empty. It was a very dark, very isolating space into which I not-so-simply surrendered.
Something really powerful happens when the concept of mortality is served up on a cold, sterile, silver platter. Last February, someone very close to me received an unexpected and devastating terminal diagnosis. Before anyone really had time to think, I had resigned from my job to become a full time caregiver to them. I quickly realized that there is no “perfect” way to walk alongside someone in a journey so personal, transient, and volatile.
I began to accept that perfection isn’t really the goal, that my best is perfectly good enough. I learned how to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I realized that I couldn’t truly hold another up while dodging the cracks in my own foundation.
The cracks. That’s how the light gets in. The light that is warm, the light that is healing, the light that is investing in yourself so you can in turn invest in what and who matters to you. We are always becoming. There is no right way, no perfect way, to embark on your own journey of self care. It is your own way, and that is the right way. For me, in my journey, the impetus was this tragic, life-changing event. In the anger and grief, though, there is still space for gratitude. That I am not trapped in that fortress I created around myself. There are cracks, and instead of hiding them, I am learning to embrace them. I am dynamic, I am malleable, I am impressionable, I am wildly adaptive, I am capable of transformation.
It is not selfish to love on yourself the way you love on those around you. There is no perfect way. I have not robbed myself of the ability to grow. I am still becoming.