Free

January 19, 2021

I was listening to a podcast while getting ready this morning. I used to not listen to podcasts, they just weren’t on my radar and the app was only on my phone because Apple didn’t allow you to delete it at the time. But then I moved to DC and it seemed like the third question people asked behind “what’s your name” and “where do you work?” was “what podcasts are you listening to.” I bristled at it to start with, but now I’m a podcast person. And yes, I know how pretentious that sounds.

But I love them! I love learning and while I have some podcasts I listen to for entertainment (hello Happy Rant Pod) most of them are for informational purposes. I can learn something from an expert all while going about my normal business??? Yes, please!

This morning as I was curling my hair and listening to a podcast on dating, I heard the host ask the guest about dating and understanding our worth. The guest, a relationship coach, talked about how when we aren’t secure in our worth we’ll often think we’re not enough or maybe even too much for people.

I paused in curling my hair and looked down in thought. I recalled looking down at the hot chocolate in my hand, sitting on a bench in New York City’s Central Park a year and a half ago with Haley. That marked the first time I started to feel something truly settling in my healing. For days I sought a word to accurately label the feeling and one finally came to me - intact. I realized that the brain surgery wasn’t a bomb that I was now picking up the pieces to, trying to rebuild something that looked like before, no I was a sculpture hidden in a rough, unfished block of granite and the brain surgery was a significant, strategic strike of the chisel that caused many unnecessary chunks to fall away. It was one of the strikes that allowed for the beauty of the sculpture to be revealed underneath the shapeless block of stone. Over time, more detailing work was done in the image as I continued, with intentional help, to heal.

As I was listening to this podcast, I remember feeling like I was too much. For a long time after my surgery and during my illness and medical process, I felt like no one would want to sign up for all that I am because it takes a lot to love me and hurts a lot more at times.

But this morning, as I was listening to this podcast, I realized that I don’t feel like I’m too much anymore.

I don’t feel like I’m too much anymore! 

I don’t feel like my illnesses and being differently-abled exempts me from being loved.

And I rejoice. Two years ago, three years ago, I couldn’t fathom being here emotionally. I didn’t believe it was possible. I’m so happy it is.

But as I’m driving into work an hour later, thoughts enter my mind that make me begin to question that beautiful revelation. I’ve tasted freedom, I don’t want to reenter any mental or emotional prison.

I think back to that first feeling of being intact.

As the sculptor is chiseling and chunks of granite fall to reveal the image underneath, I don’t get to pick back up those pieces from the floor of his studio. I don’t get to reattach what the craftsman has deemed isn’t part of the sculpture. I can acknowledge that there’s a little more carving to do in an area, a little more detail work, but I don’t want to clutch tightly to discarded pieces of stone that are only there by my incomplete view of a piece in progress and not the artists’ vision and intent of the final product.

And I don’t get to let anyone pick up those pieces either. As the sculptor invites or allows someone into the studio while the piece is in progress, they aren’t allowed to decide a piece the sculptor carved away needs to be reattached or go somewhere else on the sculpture. The artist might admonish them for trying, or gently share with them parts of the sculpture that can yet be seen by anyone but the artist’s eye and explain why that piece had to come away, or maybe the artist will let them try but will stand back as the detached scraps of granite simply fall away, the sculpture unchanged.

I don’t get to pick those pieces back up.

I don’t want to pick those pieces back up.

I don’t get to let anyone else pick those pieces back up and try to put them back on me.

I have one sculptor, and he alone has the full image of the sculpture, the art, that he is bringing forth from the unfinished mass of stone. Like with all art, many might not see it for what the artist intends, might not understand. Some might try or want to change it, some might even want to see it destroyed.

But there will be others, others who see and appreciate and value the artist’s intention and vision, who see the beauty and recognize the care and effort and skill and love it takes to bring the forthcoming final piece from nothing but raw materials to where it is and where it will be. And most of all, the sculptor will delight in the beautiful piece of art he created and crafted. Strong granite yielding only to his hands and standing steadfast as a testament to his skill and unwavering devotion.

So I make the decision to know and trust I’m not too much to love, and I let that shard of stone fall back to the growing pile of rocks on the studio floor, trusting the artist’s discerning eye and sculpting hands.

And I download more podcasts.

To hear this entry read aloud, click here.
To watch this entry in American Sign Language, click here. (Coming Soon)