Be Easy

My twenty year old brain, if one would have told it to be easy, would have conjured notions of late nights and free love.  For the score that came after that, being easy wasn’t an option. It’s not only that I was in a committed, eternal relationship, but that the grind of life had rendered me tense, rigid, and consumed with conformity. I had forgotten the ease of youth, the flow of a child. So when my meditation teacher told me to be easy, I had no idea what to do. 

I had developed some habits, some fixtures in my being. They were so innate, so fused into my flesh. They reeked of nature and nurture, a mixture of both generational dams and this lifetime ruts. I worried endlessly and planned relentlessly. I was quick to ignite and increasingly withdrawn. My fuse smoldered with ever quickening speed toward some unwritten certainty and an endless litany of if, only, should, could, I wish, never, not, and no. How could I be easy? 

Life as I knew it required me to work hard, think hard, play hard, make life hard. I had been told to never stop, keep going, put one foot in front of the other– succeed. The treadmill picking up speed was a sure-fire indicator I was on the right track. 

Wake up. Get ready. Yell at the kids to get ready. Drop them off at daycare. Do the day job. Pick up kids at daycare. Make dinner.  Yell at the kids to eat dinner. Supervise bath time.  Make lunches for the next day. Check out. Pass out. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Weekend—catch my breath. Repeat. Thirty more years will be like a blink of an eye. And then one fine day, if I’m lucky…. I kept beating on with my boat against the current, in search of my green light, the orgastic future. 

And then I woke up. 

Life no longer made any sense. Inadequacy permeated the air and defiantly, in an uncontrollable tantrum of chronic illness, I let out my barbaric yawp and whimpered: The Universe intends so much more for me. And with this gut-wrenching, ass-kicking, self-crushing realization, I would never be the same. Thus began my dark night of the soul in which my life was turned upside down and inside out. Every norm that I had measured my success against until now had become a hollow lie that I had been sold by those who profited in some way off my allegiance. 

Since when was this enough?

And then I woke up. 

I became obsessed with what was on my family’s plate. This was something I could control. I watched every food fearful documentary I could. I learned how to bake grain free. I turned lemons into lemonade without sugar. 

Wake up. Get ready. Make a green smoothie. Yell at the kids to get ready. Drop them off at daycare. Do the day job. Pick kids up at daycare. Go to the farmstand. Make dinner.  Yell at the kids to eat dinner. Supervise bath time. Make lunches for the next day. Check out. Pass out. Do it again– 

And then I woke up. 

My husband had been throwing the Transcendental Meditation pamphlet my way for at least a year. Life, despite my insistence that I was okay, knew that I wasn’t. It forced me to take a leave of absence. Finally, I hedged my bets and prepared to cut my losses. I learned to meditate. I spent all my free time in the garden. 

Wake up. Meditate. Make a green smoothie. Drop kids off at school. Water the garden. Do the part-time day job. Pick kids up from school. Make dinner. Sometimes yell at the kids to eat dinner. Make lunches for the next day. Check out. Pass out. Do it again–

And then I woke up. 

I realized that meditation was good for me– really good. I tried harder to get it in each morning and night. I pushed myself relentlessly in the garden, and then crashed dramatically the next day. I set expectation after expectation until I learned that I couldn’t expect to engage with any of those exacting apparitions. 

Wake up. Meditate.  Make a green smoothie. Drop kids at school. Water the garden. Do the part-time day job. Pick up kids from school. Meditate. Make dinner. Make lunches for the next day. Sometimes check out. Pass out. Do it again–

And then I woke up to a pandemic.  

The whole wide world seemed to be breaking down in a tide of uncertainty, but my Universe was just starting to jibe.

Wake up slowly. Meditate.  Have breakfast as a family. Do the part-time day job from home. Have lunch with my daughters. Water the garden. Reconnect with my yoga. Meditate. Have dinner as a family. Do it again–

And then I woke up and quit my day job. 

New customs are now replacing old ruthless regimes.  They are more fluid, undulating through my days with a sense of growth and letting go. Where once raged a fiery inferno, a soft glow now emanates, one that is contained yet uncontainable. It seeks light and is light. At once submersible, yet an ever present force as old as time. Where once there were only hard knocks, a new easiness taps gently at my door. 

Some days I still struggle to answer the right call, to let go of those ever vigilant nags of my former self that beckon from just beyond the other side. That self is made to wait more and more. She taps her foot and stares at her watch. She knocks again and tries the bell. She shakes her head in exasperation. How long will it take, I wonder, until she decides it’s not worth knocking anymore?

Until then I bide my time and hide so she doesn’t know I’m home. Sometimes, I think it would be less painful, not so complicated, to just call it quits and let her back in. It’s in these moments that I try my best to remember the sage advice and just be easy.

Easier said than done.