Surrender

Surrender

Waiting. Patience, a virtue I have yet to master. Why in life do we find it most difficult when we have ZERO control?

Today my mom came home crying. Today my visa was postponed. Today, I feel helpless. Today, I wait. I wait for some higher power, surrendering to divine intervention, a sign to justify my waiting. Hair twirling, feet tapping,  clothes folded, unfolded…I wait.

I have such an ingrained need to FIX. Some things just need time to heal. A wound, no matter how well you dress it, how great the salve you slather, still needs time. I need to learn the art of waiting, surrendering to time. The art of letting life, BE life, too fast, too slow, never just right, always just a little uncomfortable, always a bit out of the expected.  Life.

My mom came home crying. She is exhausted by her passion, by her love, and her desire to be her best. We always fail. Does this need for perfection ever end? Are we always living with the assumption that we are great con artists?  "Someday they will realize I have NO idea what I’m doing”.  When do we stop believing we are fraudulently impersonating OUR OWN lives? When do we believe someone else will love us as fully as we love our beloved? 

As a child, whenever I had a hard day my mom would tell me my grandmother, Genevieve Riesterer always told HER, “this too will pass”.  She’s right, all things pass, this waiting, this feeling of helplessness. All will pass.

For now, I choose beauty, I choose truth, I choose vulnerability…I choose LOVE. I held my mom tonight, the woman who so bravely brought me into this world, the woman who spent countless sleepless nights rocking me to sleep, watching over me until my eyes closed. Tonight, for a few minutes, I was able to hold HER while she cried. I tucked HER into bed. I finally had the chance to tell HER, “This too will pass”.

Life…you tricky bastard.  Thank you for uncertainty, thank you for vulnerability, and thank you for teaching me the beauty of waiting. Thank you for postponed visas, thank you for uncertainty. Thank you for making me wait. 

I see now. I SURRENDER. 

Very little grows on jagged rock.

Be ground.  Be crumbled.

So wild flowers will come up

Where you are.

You have been stony for too many years.

Try something different.  Surrender.

-Rumi