Have I Known Peace?

My mom asked me yesterday whether or not I’d given up contributing to this blog. The answer was “I haven’t had anything to say.” The problem with that particular response is that it’s not necessarily true. I haven’t had anything funny to say and for some reason, I was, for the most part, limiting my posts here to the ridiculous, the funny and the outlandish episodes in my life. Since not a lot of ridiculous, outlandish or, God knows, funny things have been happening in my life here of late, I felt I had nothing to say where this blog was concerned.

It occurred to me this morning that this attitude was somewhat narrow minded and stupid. Hardly the first time, won’t be the last. As it turns out, I do have something to say, and those of you who know me well will now be thinking “We knew the peace and quiet simply couldn’t last. Here we go. Somebody either break that woman’s fingers or knock me the hell out right now.”

Someone very dear to me is going through a remarkably difficult time in what appears to me to be the culmination of a lifetime of never considering himself to be either good enough or worthy finally rearing its ugly head and making one hell of a good attempt at ripping him apart from the inside out once and for all. It’s a struggle we all have to eventually tackle, like it or not, and for some of us, the struggle is difficult. For others, that struggle takes on biblical proportions. I’d call this one semi-biblical. He asked me last night “have you ever known peace?” Well, me being me, I had an answer right out of the gate, but he asked me not to give my first thoughts. To stop. To think. To really consider the question. So I did, for all of about 60 seconds, which for me is taking some serious time to think about something before shooting off my mouth. But the question stayed with me, even after my stupid top of the brain answer. It stayed with me through the evening, right through a miserable and painful episode of American Idol, and was still there when I drifted off to sleep. I woke up this morning with an entirely different response.

When asked “have you ever known peace”, I immediately interpreted that question as “have I known peace in my life?” Well, yeah. Now and then. When the stars and planets align and everything goes right for maybe a day or so, I’ve known peace. When I’ve had enough money to pay my bills with something left over, when the scale is cooperating and I’m seeing the number I want to see without placing a hand on the bathroom counter and applying just enough pressure, when the sun is shining, and I have fun stuff to either do or look forward to, I know peace. When everybody I care about is reasonably healthy, I’m pooping on a fairly regular basis, and I’m in the middle of a really good book, yes - I’ve known peace. But upon waking, after giving my other brain, the smart one, time to really mull this over, I came up with not only an entirely different answer, but an entirely different answer to a completely different question. Perspective is truly everything.

Have I known peace? Why yes. Yes, I have. I know peace now. At a time in my life when just about all I hold dear is spinning in circles, when the outcome isn’t clear, and when I have no control over the finale, I know peace. I know that true peace isn’t all that other stuff I said just a paragraph ago. I don’t find true peace in absolute control. True peace is knowing a quiet calm within your own heart and being at rest with who you are, what you are and what that means. While my ego is clearly vying for space with just about every other function necessary for life, like breathing, it’s not enormous enough for me to presume I have the one-size-fits-all answer to this inner peace thing. I don’t know the meaning of life, I don’t know why we’re all here, I don’t know where that second sock goes when only one comes out of the dryer when you know damned well you put two in there, and I don’t know how to show the world how to attain inner peace.

But I know how I found it, how I maintain it and what it means to me. If it helps you, dandy. If not, thanks for reading anyway.

I once said to this same someone that my most urgent need in life wasn’t attention. It wasn’t being center stage, being looked up to, being catered to or being made to feel as though I was sitting up on some marble pedestal in the midst of my adoring public. My most urgent need in life is to find acceptance wherever I may be. Now please don’t misunderstand. I do not expect everybody to like me. I don’t like everybody else so naturally, everybody isn’t going to like me. That bothers me, yeah, but I can’t do much about it nor am I willing to do what is necessary to change their opinion of me, so it’s something I simply have to accept.

Acceptance. Yes. I crave and require acceptance from those around me but even more importantly, I understand that I must first and foremost accept and make peace with all that I am. Before I can ask for acceptance from a single soul, I have to first assess myself, come to terms with my limitations, my successes, my shortcomings, and everything that makes me me, and accept that the sum of all those parts is fine. Really and absolutely enough. On some days, it’s more than enough. One some days, it’s not quite up to par, but in the long run, when all the scores are tallied up and somebody other than me (because math is not my friend) runs the numbers, I average out to not half bad. Yes, I hate my legs. I fixed another part of my body I hated. I wish my feet were a little smaller, I wish I made a better income, I wish I had a little more self-discipline, I wish my memory were sharper, I’d like to not wake every morning with back pain and I’d like a lot of things in my life to be other than what they are.

But I like my eyes, my stomach is still flat at 50, I can pay my bills, I have some really cool stuff and could actually get by very comfortably on a lot less stuff, so clearly I have enough. I eventually get done the things I have to do, and I have become accustomed to setting up reminders for everything from dinner with friends to scooping the cat box on a regular basis within my handy dandy cell phone. While I’d like a lot of things within my life to be different, I wouldn’t trade most of what I am and what I have for the world.

I can’t. I won’t. It took me a very very long time and it took surviving some tremendously difficult life altering episodes to discover that I can’t be all things to all people. I can’t stop hurt from finding me by changing who I am. I can’t control the behavior of another. I can’t manipulate my future by manipulating my very being. I have to be content with myself, accepting all my warts and shortcomings right along with all the things about me that I proudly list on the “plus” side of my own personal spreadsheet. I try to keep that side of the sheet a little longer than the “you suck” side. And as long as I’m doing that, I’m ok.

Acceptance. Not from those around me – not at first. Acceptance from within. Acceptance that I’m doing the very best I can and that the best I can do will always have to be enough. Acceptance that not everybody will be enamored of the end result. Acceptance that I can’t change that inevitability. Acceptance that there isn’t anything I could do or would want to do to change that. Acceptance that embracing that philosophy could be costly and painful at times. Knowing that in order to be true to myself, I really have no choice. Understanding that for those who truly love and accept me, that will be enough.

So yes. I know peace.