Available

Guarding the water source, yet still blooming.

While waiting for a planned phone call from a friend last week, I began to chew on a thought… or was it a feeling? Anyway, this is what arose in my journal as I explored something that I noticed. It’s a bit raw, emotionally, and I am really okay. I felt that I needed to preface this. Also, this isn’t about any specific person or group of people… I think this is more of a sense of a personal and maybe even a cultural thing. I am curious how many of us do this very thing or something similar… maybe even without noticing?

I have noticed a pattern that I keep myself flexible, available, and without too many long term commitments or regular pre-determined rhythms because everyone else seems so busy. If I am not flexible and available… perhaps I am fearful that people won’t make time for me when they are less busy. So, what is it that I miss out on by being so randomly available for others? I’m missing out on my life.

Usually, unless I have a doctor’s appointment, haircut, or something similar that I have planned that is solidly on my calendar, when I’m making plans with someone for a phone call, a “coffee”, or a visit, I find myself defaulting to… “Sure, I’m flexible… Whatever works for you…” And, I have also found lurking in the crevices of my brain this random and untrue thought… their time is more valuable than mine. I wonder where this mindset, subconscious thought process came from?

I find I rarely commit to rhythms or a regular schedule of my choice because that would mean not being available. So much so… that sometimes I question, what am I really interested in? Do I even know what I want in life? A visual comes to mind… the old fashioned “being tied to the phone for hours if not days” because someone (a boy) said he would call. Somehow we miss embracing the life or hours that we have because of our continual availability.

I’m curious if this voice in the head is particularly strong for girls/women raised in the Church - the idea that our life is not our own - it belongs to someone else - family, men, children, the Church, God, God’s plans? Perhaps when Scripture was addressing our belonging - it was really about connectedness instead of ownership?

I wrote about Jazz and Ina on my blog last week. I sensed at the time that it was lame writing. Nonetheless, I was holding myself accountable to my personal commitment because I know this is something I struggle to do. However, a lot of time prior to my self-imposed deadline had been given to a long string of good other things. As a result, I didn’t have the time or right headspace for working toward the quality and depth that I desire to bring to my writing.

It’s like there’s something under this big rock that needs to emerge but my little chips of writing aren’t big enough to know what’s there or what the heck I’m doing. Yet I also know that if you take off too bit a chunk, while sculpting, the whole project can be ruined.

Anyway, I keep showing up when I’ve not given all of me away to someone else’s timeline… and it’s not just about the time, but the lack of energy and wrong mind space and the brain fog that happens when I don’t have time to show up for me. Perhaps it’s that margin thing from my first blog entry?

Going back to potential causes, perhaps it could be loss, too, that has complicated this being overly available thing for me? Ongoing separation from loved ones, friendships, community… at the same time, being in all those fantastic spaces too much requires recuperation. Perhaps it’s fear of not being thought of… not being loved or being loved less than the work that someone does.

So how can I love myself well, so that I can give space to what I want and need to be me, as a person, and, then, when I am available, I’m available and present with all of me? Even writing this feels heretical. Christianity has been so much about sacrificial living that the concept of self care has been relegated to an accepted and occasional mani/pedi or remembering to breath. But, I’m really not talking about self care. I’m talking about knowing and loving myself well enough, giving myself the space for personal rhythms and guarding them, caring about who I am in this space wholly body, mind, and soul that I don’t sit “waiting for the phone to ring”, unless it’s a scheduled call, of course.