{"id":3440,"date":"2014-02-13T15:19:36","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T20:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=3440"},"modified":"2014-02-13T15:19:36","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T20:19:36","slug":"tender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/tender\/","title":{"rendered":"Tender"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"snowA<\/span>s I type these words, the world beyond my window is blanketed by snow.\u00a0 There is silence in the house, save for the hum of the refrigerator, the whisper of warm air rising from the grates in the floor.\u00a0 I\u2019ve laid in groceries, mopped the salt and grit from the entryway, put tulips in a vase on the table.\u00a0 The shoveling and snow-clearing can wait. There is no place to go, nothing to do but chop and roast some vegetables later for dinner.\u00a0 Time slows. Edges soften. I feel a weight in my heart slowly begin to lift, my breath settle back into a deeper rhythm, my own sense of myself returning.<\/p>\n

For a week I\u2019ve been struggling with some old, familiar demons.\u00a0 The fear of not being enough.\u00a0 The need to protect my tenderest, most vulnerable feelings from the harsh light of day.\u00a0 Self-doubt.\u00a0 Regret for things said and unsaid in a relationship I cherish.\u00a0 The wish that I could feel less, hurt less, and slough off more.\u00a0 \u00a0A piercing disappointment that try as I might to shape my life, there is and will always be so much that\u2019s beyond my control or understanding.\u00a0 The realization that I\u2019m not quite as good at non-attachment as I like to think I am.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe root of all suffering,\u201d the Buddhists say, \u201cis the desire for things to be different than they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

S<\/span>o simple. \u00a0So true.\u00a0 But knowing it is so doesn\u2019t make the wanting and the wishing go away.\u00a0 And an intellectual understanding of melancholy does little to ease the sadness that is, I suspect, simply part of being alive, an essential ingredient of our muddling, hopeful humanness.<\/p>\n

Yet, if growing older is teaching me anything \u2013 anything that makes me feel a bit more at home in my \u00a0emotionally porous and decidedly solitary soul \u2013 it\u2019s that I can survive my own feelings.\u00a0 Instead of numbing them, I can allow them the full measure of their power — dark and chaotic as that power sometimes is.\u00a0 Instead of turning tail and running in the direction of busyness or distraction, I can remind myself to be still, uncomfortable as stillness may be.\u00a0 Instead of masking sadness with anger and pretending I\u2019m mad, I can let tears fall and acknowledge that I hurt.\u00a0 Instead of pasting on a stiff upper lip and insisting that I\u2019m fine, I can gather up my courage, invite a trusted friend into my murky corner and concede that, for the moment anyway, I\u2019m not fine at all.<\/p>\n

And slowly, the emotional weather changes.\u00a0 I know better, finally, than to think I can make myself stop feeling a certain way, any more than I can wish the snow to stop or the sun to shine.\u00a0 But eventually the sky does clear. \u00a0Always. Sadness gives way to equanimity.\u00a0 Hopelessness is nudged aside by quiet, unexpected joy.\u00a0 Gratitude turns grief a different color.\u00a0 Feelings go away because others come along.\u00a0 The trick, perhaps, is simply to keep the flow going.\u00a0 To watch and feel and wait and trust.\u00a0 To judge myself less harshly and to welcome all my feelings as reminders that I’m still alive — alive and fully engaged in the endlessly challenging task of being human.\u00a0 Which is to say: \u00a0I’m doing the best I can, and giving myself permission, again and again and again, to love and receive love in return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I type these words, the world beyond my window is blanketed by snow.\u00a0 There is silence in the house, save for the hum of the refrigerator, the whisper of warm air rising from the grates in the floor.\u00a0 I\u2019ve laid in groceries, mopped the salt and grit from the entryway, put tulips in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,3,23,31,40,43,14],"tags":[130,177,198],"class_list":{"0":"post-3440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-acceptance","8":"category-aging-2","9":"category-compassion","10":"category-grief","11":"category-mindfulness","12":"category-practice","13":"category-soul-work","14":"tag-compassion-2","15":"tag-feelings","16":"tag-gratitude-2","17":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}