A Wandering Offering

wanderings

Lately I've been sitting with many tensions, one being the therapist mask and essentially masking my own humanity. Like the world, I feel like I'm breaking in many different ways.

This professional archetype that seems to have its own costume, its own script, its own acceptable topics. EMDR. Credentials. I wonder out loud if I'm allowed to move slower than the world and still have a place in it.

I get some of what I describe is necessary. At the same time somewhere underneath all of the noise, I often feel like I have to hide this whole, expansive, multidimensional person who has so much more she wants to say and share and create.

What's wild is that I work in a field that claims authenticity heals, but I live in a world where authenticity is not what's rewarded. Performance is…

While being truly seen is stated as one of the most therapeutic experiences a human can have, I find myself navigating containers where more and more each day I'm implicitly asked to be less seen, not more.

Even though that's not what my clients are asking for.

There’s a longing for someone to just be real in the room.

A desire for another human being to guide and walk alongside in these apocalyptic times.

So I've been wandering…

I stumbled upon a quote that felt like a seed I was meant to water, or at least explore:

"One finds orientation in one's wandering in the desert through utopic imagining, nourishing a capacity to believe in a better future" (p.36, Toward Psychologies of Liberation).

I can't say I've arrived at utopia, nor can I say that's my destination. But this gave me something like a compass.

I’m learning that my wanderings, writing, being in nature, sketching, give me space and time to imagine something different and enable me to walk alongside others. These practices are not frivolous to me. They’re not unnecessary nor complicit to me.

In fact, they’re the opposite of what I tend to feel like in the world! They’re life-affirming. I finally feel human. And they help me to affirm the life of others.

I get to appreciate a butterfly.

To remember to keep going.

To protect the smallest life that still brings me awe simply by existing.

When I go on hikes, I often get lost. This past Monday, a 7.8 mile hike became 10 miles. A 4.5 hour hike became like 7 hours.

One might see this as failure.

How could I take so many “wrong” paths? How many times have I had to double back, turn around, come back to the same spot, check my map?

Call me cheesy, but this feels like a metaphor for my life.

I keep getting lost.

I keep taking the "wrong" routes.

And slowly I'm learning that all of them are part of finding what matters.

They carry me beyond fatalism, despair, passivity, the easy exits that are everywhere right now. They bring me to a destination that feels more humane, sustainable, connected, life affirming, messy, confusing, and healing.

I get to be frustrated. I get to wrestle with what I'm witnessing and imagine different ways without taking that frustration, anger, or rage out on others, especially my community.

That feels like an important part of my human journey. Because then I get to bring those imaginings as offerings to someone who might need it.

I'm tired of letting strangers on the internet tell me what's important.

My heart already seems to know, if I can just quiet enough to listen to her. She might just be this weird, quiet, sensitive, whimsical little kid I've been running from my entire life.

But she hasn’t abandoned me. :)

She keeps showing up…showing me the way. Helping me practice humanity over performance. Teaching me wandering is a valid method even if it’s not to others. That authenticity and vulnerability are practices that can lead to profound, meaningful, and lasting connections.

I should say she's no longer alone. While I've navigated some dehumanizing containers, I'm also finding spaces that remind me I don't need to earn the right to exist in this world by being productive, always working "for the cause," always being resilient, always trying to keep up.

I don't have to constantly prove myself.

I won't get left behind.

One of the greatest gifts I get to offer is what others are teaching me through relationship right now:

That while many of us may want to hide and isolate so as not to be a “burden,” we don’t have to wait until we’ve figured things out to speak.

To those who were kids like me, we don’t have to earn the right to be here.

To exist…

That even if it feels impossible right now, we can be loved, celebrated, accepted, just as we are…