permission to become
just take the good thing already
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How do you know when life is changing for the better? Not quite a learning curve or a miracle. Something between a feeling and a fact. You might be pouting in the mirror, immersed in your daily vanity ritual, then realize you just no longer recognize yourself. Instead, the person staring back is someone you’ve been dying to meet.
Resistance isn’t something you can afford in cash now. I know that the bruises are freshly patched with powder and the buzz of the unknown hasn’t settled, but the thing that stands between you and everything you’ve ever truly wanted is mostly just allowing it to happen. Yes, that’s the hard part. Givers can’t trust receiving. Who, me? Why? Hold the golden spoon in your hand because you forged it and you fed yourself, betting on knowing better with blind faith. Self-deprivation only works when nothing of worth is at stake, and even then for so long.
But to look back on every misstep and miscalculation, every wrongfully turned night and barely touched dreamscape, without regretting any of it, without administering cruelty, to see it for what it is and what it could never ever be, extending a big hug to the infinity of variations of you that once existed, what a beautiful thing. No scolding because they all mattered — they had to survive somehow, to breathe underwater, teeth to skin and asking the tough questions. They don’t know you, but you know them all too well.
Last night, I went to bed before 11, slept through the night, woke up at 7 with a smile. This has been happening for weeks now. Shocker. No interruptions or cold sweats, no veiled admissions to the underworld abyss where both my sleep paralysis demon and my worst ex are sponsoring my self-diagnosed insomnia. What I’m trying to say is I no longer have sleep problems. I haven’t upped my magnesium, followed a Bryan Johnson tip or even cut back on caffeine — there’s nothing external to attribute this newfound calm to. And though I miss the black and blue badges of honor under my eyes because the sleepless torture allowed me to stay up late editing, I had to accept that good sleep in peaceful knowing is something my body demands now. It also lets me do it hard and clean. Who knew sleeping was a skill?
But we’ve always kind of known that the wall that separates us from all the baddest bitches is the crimson red need to be liked. To be saved by virtue of tolerance. Eventually, you get sick of it. It cracks and dissolves, step by step and all at once, and with it goes anxiety around the people above you in power, income, experience — the perception volatility starts to even out into gentle curiosity, no room for trembling, just something that ignites the brain and keeps you going. You can speak louder now, the voice won’t shake or betray your demeanor. I told myself I wouldn’t stop until I got my way — just can’t believe I got there so fast. The sound of my 6.5 size heels on the laminated floor belongs in the room just as much as the firm laughter of those who’ve gotten their suits dry cleaned on the weekends and pitched important decks with big words for over 20 years. And when I open my mouth to speak, coherence binds to humor with a little leeway for error, because I’m not just wise but funny, and I can fail so well and charmingly. It’s not my business now to question how and why I’ve been invited — I just step into the room. Growing gracefully selfish, but maybe that’s why I’ve been sleeping so well.