DHARMA - Tough Days

You know what they look like. They start like any other day, but quickly morph into something heavy; cumbersome. You feel like every step is a fight to keep moving forward. Maybe it's a meaningful day; a sad anniversary, or maybe it's just Tuesday. No matter what, it's a hard day.

I had a tough day last week. It started out with me dreading the plans I had made; knowing that I had to go and ended with me just wishing I could curl up in my bed and forget the world. It was a day about fighting: me fighting the feeling of a tough day, someone fighting with me, two ninjas fighting behind a closed door....

A wise cousin told me before I left for D.C. that "every new beginning is hard." Oh, man, is this true. But the companion to change is discovery. And I have already learned so much about myself from the hard stuff. I can tell you for certain that I value my friendships, a comfy couch and decent cookware. I have also discovered that I have no use for cruelty that stems from insecurity or for half of my purses.

And I have managed to stop and actually appreciate some new stuff. Stuff that has taken my breath away or stopped me in my tracks: the sun rising over the Potomac, a deer running next to me in Rock Creek Park, a single, continuous 200 foot escalator at my metro stop. The stuff that fills us with joy or contributes to a realistic fear of getting injured.

Tomorrow is a new day. It is not a sad anniversary or a hard moment. It is a day of new beginnings where I get to start over and be me again for 24 hours. How lucky I am.

(Thanks to my favorite woman soldier for the "it's just Tuesday" reference.)

MOKSHA - Falling flat on my face

When I was in college, my good friend and I always set two New Year's resolutions at the start of each year. The first was concrete. This was the public resolution, the one you could easily share with others when asked. This year, my concrete resolution was starting this blog. There was always a second resolution, however. One that was more private, and not openly discussed. This is the one I want to share with you.

At the beginning of this year, I resolved that this would be the year I would fall flat on my face. I know. It sounds strange. Let me explain...

In a now famous commencement speech to the graduates at Harvard, J.K. Rowling surprisingly discussed the importance of failure. She said that one cannot go through life without failing at something unless one lives so cautiously that it is almost like not living at all.

This struck a chord with me. I recognized myself in that description of one who can live too cautiously. I am uncomfortable with the idea of failure, but risk is an important byproduct of living fully. So at the beginning of this year, I resolved that I would risk failure in all aspects of life and make this a year of really living.

And, Lord, what a year it has been! I have fallen flat on my face in relationships, in self-discipline, in my work life, and in making smart decisions. I have risked and failed. Tried and quit. Started and left unfinished. I have been reckless and allowed my heart to take me to dangerous places. I have cried, felt confused, woken up and kept going. But there have been successes as well. Wonderful treasures that sprung from great risk. This experiment in living has helped me shake off the extraneous parts of my life and allowed me to rethink what I am capable of.

We all have ideas about what our limitations are: I could never run a marathon, I am doomed to be a clerk forever, I could never go back to school. But what a magical moment it is when we shirk off the labels we set for ourselves and step forward to try something scary.

And so here I am, in Washington DC, miles away from the life I had planned out in my head, saying yes to new adventures. Yes to not knowing how it will work out, but just trusting that it will. Heading towards new risks and new loss and new ways to get my heart broken. Hallelujah!