How We Relate to The Issue, Is The Issue

The other day I was getting a Thai Massage. I was folded up like a Murphy bed, someone standing on my back, and somewhere in there, I finally landed the punchline to a joke I’d been working on for weeks. The punchline was for my upcoming comedy set, where I discuss God, meditation and my weird childhood hobbies.

I find myself having these “shower thoughts” a lot lately. It’s like as soon as I give my brain permission to not need to figure it out, something takes over.

This is, apparently, just how I’m built.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering who I am. It’s been a question that has been at the center of my searching since I was a little girl. I’ve always been a meaning maker, which has been a blessing and a curse.

Am I spiritual or irreverent? Deep or funny? Someone who meditates twice a day or someone who loves 90’s hip hop?

The answer for me seems to always be yes.

I have never wanted to pick a lane. I don’t think I even could if I tried. So I’m certainly not going to do that on Substack. I also don’t think a great life happens in lanes either.

I like to write about why I can’t stop analyzing people who don’t deserve the analysis, the version of motherhood nobody puts on a greeting card, and whatever ridiculous thing happened that week.

This may sound a lil bit scattered, but I don’t think it is.

After years of personal growth and what I like to call A LOT of research, I’ve come to believe one thing:

How we relate to this issue, is the issue.

The circumstances themselves are always changing. One year it’s my relationship. Another, a friendship. Then it’s a child. Next it’s my body, money, or some person I just met who has suddenly hijacked the entire nervous system. Etc. Forever.

The circumstances are always masquerading as the “thing” but I’ve come to learn the circumstances are actually just the vehicle. It’s just the thing life happens to be using at that moment to show us where we need to focus the healing.

The boyfriend is the vehicle. The difficult child is the vehicle. The friendship ending is the vehicle. Whatever you can’t stop thinking about at 2 am is the vehicle.

What really fascinates me is what happens inside of us once the vehicle arrives.

And that bus is never late.

Do we numb ourselves from our own lives or do we choose to engage in whatever messy, uncomfortable way is available to us now?

Or my personal favorite; Do we know something and then spend six weeks constructing an airtight case for why we don’t actually know it or do we have the courage to act on what we know?

I have done all of the above with remarkable enthusiasm.

I used to think the goal of all of this personal growth and healing was eventually reaching some magical point where I would stop having issues. I’ll let you know as soon as that happens. ;)

I have a theory that we are basically in some version of Earth School. Maybe we get one lifetime to work it out. Maybe we get twenty thousand. I genuinely don’t know, and increasingly “ I don’t know” is one of my favorite answers for all spiritual questions.

I’m beginning to think the only thing that really matters is:

Am I actually here for the life that I'm in now?

There are a few core things I keep coming back to. The gap between what we know and what we choose to do. The multiple and ever increasing creative ways we abandon ourselves. The way relationships of any kind reveal us. Peace, attention and what happens when life refuses to cooperate.

And mostly the fact that it’s all pretty damn hilarious.

I’m still getting walked on, both literally and figuratively. Still landing punchlines mid-Murphy bed position. I have come to accept that I am both spiritual and irreverent and completely unwilling to pick a lane.

I am so happy to be writing here, but I am mostly SO glad you’re here! Along for the ride, in whatever vehicle you have chosen today. Honk Honk!

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