Just Show Up

“When you imagine your future, do not think that you will be the same then as you are now.” – Sanaya Roman

I started writing this yesterday, and wanted to wish you a very happy beginning of August, but there were men here working on our rental house and it was so loud, I couldn’t even think. So I popped my earphones in, listened to some music, and got sucked into looking back through my blog.

(My Vision Board from January 2010.)

It started off with me copying and pasting some of the quotes I have used in the past, but then I just started to scroll backwards, reading three posts at a time, until I had reached page 75 and a post I wrote in 2009 about the strangeness of memory.

I remember all of it. I remember taking every picture and where I wrote each post. I remember learning how to upload the chapters of my book. I remember how I felt, how I yearned and searched and wanted and dreamed. I remember how lost I felt and how worried I was that I was never ever going to ‘get it together’. I remember the people who used to comment on every post, and I wonder where some of them are now. When I follow the links back to their old blogs, most are long gone.

It was a strange feeling, watching Future Self me reading back over letters from Past Self me; a me that feels so far away and yet so present. I am still her in so many ways. Her questions, her dreams, her proclamations, her wishes and her hopes are all still a part of me. I am so proud of her, so in awe of her, so grateful to her for showing up and writing what was in her heart, and for always asking for more.

Earlier this week I wrote a post about just showing up, and so I have been spending time at the page every morning. As I wrote this morning, I thought a lot about about mySelf and all of the things that I have been wanting and dreaming about for years, and where I am compared to where I thought I would be by now. 

I know now that all of the good things that happened in my life happened because I showed up. And I don’t mean rocked-up-to-the-party-once-and-went-home, I mean when I knew something was right, so I showed up up over and over again, even when I didn’t feel like it. Even when it was hard. Even when all I wanted to do was go to bed.

(Detail from my Vision Board – January 2010. P.S. I own those glasses!)

And that is a big shift for me. My natural inclination is to stretch towards freedom, but rules and structures make me want to run screaming into the night. Sitting here looking through the eyes of my past self, there are so many more things I wish that she had showed up for.

But here’s the Magical bit: now I know. Now I know that in a few years I will be sitting somewhere looking back at this letter. Now I know that that me will want so much to tell this me to just show up.

It’s not about weight.
It’s not about money.
It’s not about love.
It’s not about health.
It’s not about anything.
It’s about tending the fire:
My Fire.
It’s about showing up, over and over and over again.
The way my future self would want me to.
And making her happen.

xo