On My Kumbaya Shit

Look at me.

Smiling. At peace. Happy. For now.

I know that sounds pessimistic, but let me explain something: Nothing lasts. Nothing stays the same. & this is the beauty of life.

I have learned many things in my little blip of a lifetime but the most important thing I’ve learned, at least Top 3, is to BE fuckin’ PRESENT. There’s only here & now. We can plan for the future, & we should. We should take measures to set ourselves up for a life that serves us & our loved ones, but the measure to which we plan cannot exceed the measure to which we live.

In other words, if you live your life planning, trying to control every outcome, carefully & meticulously stepping into safety, into the known; a path so beat up with the soles - the souls - of others, then you’re missing out. Similarly, if you live your life carelessly jumping into every opportunity or every relationship presented to you, then you’re not valuing the individual that slumbers within, waiting for the opportunity to be worthy of consideration & respect.

But this muse isn’t about that tightrope of a walk. No. This is about how happy I feel, why I feel happy, & how I know that there’s a future where I will no longer be feeling this way.

Stay. Let me tell you.

I am happy because, after a year of living in anxiety, fear & lack,

I moved into a space of isolation, darkness & pain.

Then, as I kept peeling the layers back, I moved into a place of release, surrender & compassion.

I’ve heard this audio on Tik Tok & Instagram Reels that says something like, “you have no idea the darkness I had to overcome in order to become this light”. I butchered it, but you get the idea.

I am happy because I emerged. But I didn’t just emerge. Some deeply rooted belief systems were solidified &, others, were destroyed, or transformed. I learned so much about myself, about what I had been holding on to & why, & I fuckin’ love myself for it so much.

I learned to forgive myself. To give myself grace. I’d never done that before. I was always so willing to carry the burden of all the things for the people I loved!

I’ve never told anybody this but, one time, when I was 5 or 6, my parents started arguing. My dad was drunk & he had cornered my mom in their bedroom. Usually ,my brother would come to MY rescue & he would give me some game to play, put me in the closet & I wouldn’t come out until he told me to. That night, he wasn’t home. My mom was hysterical, crying & began to call for me. “Judy!! Judy!!” In Spanish, she screamed, “call the police!” I opened the door to their bedroom, my dad was grabbing at her, slurring & demanding as she tried to push him away from her. My eyes met hers & she yelled again, “Judy! Call the police!”

In my little brain, all I could picture was all the times I’d seen my dad get put in the back of a cruiser & then the days thereafter when I missed him. I loved & love my daddy so much. I didn’t want to miss him again. I was scared for my mom. I was scared for my dad. & I almost did call the police, but I didn’t. I chose my dad that night. & I did what I knew to do; I hid in the closet.

I have carried the burden of everyone else’s pain & plight all of my life. It was almost as if I went through life asking, “how is this my fault?”, then I’d carry that.

I have looked at all of these things, all of the memories I’d put away in Pandora’s box & I opened them up. It wasn’t even that my past relationship had failed. That hurt. Don’t get me wrong. It was painful - the most chattering of a relationship container ever - but it was all the things that it brought up for me. My fears. My attachments. My beliefs about myself. About love.

Fuck.

I am happy because I put a lot of shit down. I just quit carrying it. So, I feel lighter, more at peace. The fears, anxieties & doubts that plagued me a year ago, now chiseled down to a manageable size, & more importantly, to the core where I can really dig into the root of much of what I’d hidden from others & myself.

However.

How.

Ever.

Happiness is fleeting. It should never be the goal because, even in this example, living in only happiness would mean I’d never have gotten the chance to really MEET myself. Without trials, without the fuckin’ fire burning at your heels, without the shadow lurking just beneath, just beyond, without the emotions that call us forward - we do not transform. Happiness is too much dependent on outside factors & we cannot control those. The more we depend on what we cannot control, the more we are actually in chaos aka depression, anger, anxiety.

It’s not to say that I look forward to unhappiness but, rather, that I know I will have moments where I am simply content, okay, & yes, even anxious at times or sad. Why? Because they all matter. All of these, not just happiness, demand that we coexist in a vacuum of uncertainty in order to truly embody humanity. Our humanity & that of others.

If that’s not some kumbaya shit, I don’t know what is.