The ebb and flow of a life in motion

Thoughts on paradox and a new book recommendation!

My friend, Lindsay Swoboda, wrote a beautiful, relatable, practical, and inspiring memoir about her life as a military wife called Holding On and Letting Go: A life in Motion. As a part of her launch team, I am joining in a blog hop sharing my thoughts and poems on the topic of holding on and letting go.

I wanted to start with what I’m letting go of this season. To me, it feels like letting go first is necessary to strip away the rhythms and identities that no longer serve us in order to see what’s worth holding onto.

Letting go- a poem

When the bleeding stops

A woman reaches out to touch his robes

Not knowing what or how to wish

Only ravaged by a desire for different

Fingers outstretched in desperation

But what happens

When the thing that defines you,

for better or worse,

For familiarity,

Vanishes like a miracle

You can’t quite believe?

What happens

When the unclean becomes clean

When the world opens up

In a suffocating freedom

A paralyzing pause

The terrible silence as

The crowd moves on

Jesus flits to his next subject

And you are no longer the spectacle yourself

Just a woman?

No bleeding to distract or blame

No cramping to contain

No rules to regiment her life around

Did she stand there? Alone?

For how long?

Was she tempted to keep quiet?

Stay separate

Relief and disbelief

Flowing with

Resistance and un-asked-for resilience

Brave to touch his robes

Braver still to go home

Just a woman

This poem first appeared in my Plunge / Paint / Poem series

I am shocked and grateful that OCD has become so quiet in my life, an afterthought. As such, I am letting go of my identity as an OCD sufferer. OCD will always be part of my story, but instead of being defined by this internal battle, I am moving into just living. As a woman, a mom, a friend, a daughter, a creative. Not someone who is consumed by fears of being not enough. Not someone who is relentlessly ravaged by accusations and compulsions.

I am just woman, with regular thoughts and insecurities. I wrote another poem including the title of Lindsay’s memoir:

Just a woman

Soft and silly

Tenacious and tender

Holding on and letting go

Just a woman

Full of love and insecurity

Finally free

I am also letting go of hurry, urgency, and asking the question, what does this say about me? I am releasing the weight of my diagnosis and afflictions, false promises of certainty and solutions. Some other things I am letting go of: shame, guilt, output connected to worth, vocation connected to worth, performance connected to worth. Actually, a big theme is letting go of earning my worth at all.

So this brings me to what I am holding onto in this season.

Holding on—a poem

I close my eyes

I picture a small ember aglow behind my sternum, burning, stirring, spurring

stoked not by shame or fear

guilt and obligation have no place here

yet, it still burns

I still burn

tethered to my determination

to thrive

to live

to create beauty

craving fire, full blown consumption

can I be satisfied with this small flame?

I'm sick of making meaning

assigning worth

I want to feel it know it live it

without doubt

without discussion

without caveat

or explanation

without mustering up anything

I find myself in a sobering space

the guilt that burned also

warmed

learning to "stay lit without the storm"

fueled by the same determination that brought me to healing

trusting in my own ability to make magic

finding the magic was in me all along

Can I allow myself to receive what I have not worked for?

exposing my soft belly of insecurity

if I'm not riddled in angst, who am I?

absent of striving, will I disappear?

I picture a small ember aglow behind my sternum, stirring, spurring

still burning

still me

On the other side of a big move, quitting my job, and healing from OCD, I’m holding on to my creative spark, my desire for community, the deep joy and satisfaction I get from sharing my creations, my time, my heart with others. I’m holding on to my love of nature, daily rituals like plunging, painting, and writing poetry. I’m holding on to small delights, solitude and breathing room.

The last line in Lindsay’s title is A life in Motion.

A life in motion is a life in tension, constantly ebbing and flowing. Rife with paradox. When I was first diagnosed with OCD, I imagined recovery as floating, unbothered by the weight of intrusive thoughts, guilt, and obligations. Now, in recovery, I relate to this sense of floating, but I imagine myself floating not in a calm lake or pool, but a winding river. The journey allows for floating sometimes, but also requires me to shift and respond to the world around me, the small tides within me.

A life in motion-a poem

The ebb and flow of a life in motion

emptiness or expansion?

floating, aimless

or buoyed, held?

I float, yes,

also swim and dive

tread and bob

At times, I stand,

feet skimming slimy sand,

pollen floating on the surface,

ripples stretching out from me, then,

back toward me until their beginning and end are indecipherable.

Both/and all the time

still and still moving

making peace with

the ebb and flow of the world around me

and the ebb and flow within me

Even if healing/health can be described as floating, floating is not as effortless as it appears (at least for me.) Floating is sustained by a thousand constant, nearly imperceptible micromovements needed to stay afloat. I want to delight in each movement, still and still moving.

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What about you? What are you holding onto? What are you letting go of? How do you see the tension in your life as beautiful?

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This post is part of a blog hop with author Lindsay Swoboda in support of her book Holding On and Letting Go: A Life in Motion.

Click here to view the next post in the series.