Large

My life is large. I live in a big city (well, the outskirts of a big city), and I work in an office (normally), and I commute through traffic. I go to a gym, and I make a lot of goals that I feel that I need to accomplish. I’m (too) hard on myself. I do the things that need to be done, not because I want to, but because someone needs to do them. I have difficult people in my life who are not kind to me. And in the past, I have tried to make them like me and treat me better.

I have competed. For jobs, for affection, for approval. I have made excuses for people who were cruel. Who were selfish. Who were untrue. I have filled up my life with so many things and reasons and habits and routines that I don’t genuinely like. I have tried to be successful without asking how I defined “success.” I have done the things I was told to do, and I did most of them well. But I never asked if I wanted to do them. I thought that I should.

“Should” has taken up a lot of room in my life. I should be nice to people who aren’t nice to me because I will be the “bigger person.” I should try to accomplish more, I should strive to be my best (rather than just be). I should take care of those around me. I should give. I should give more. I should give even more.

My life has gotten large because I have filled it with so many things that I don’t need. And I don’t want a large live. I want a small life. I want less goals, and less demands, and less shoulds. I want do things I enjoy, just because I enjoy them. I want to befriend people who I like, rather than people I “should” to “network.” I want to exist without constantly having to prove my right to exist.

I’ve been thinking about this for the past week, and today I was introduced to the Mary Oliver poem “Wild Geese.” It begins like this: “You do not have to be good./ You do not have to walk on your knees/ for a hundred miles through the desert repenting./ You only have to let the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves.”

If that’s not permission to clean house, I don’t know what is.