Do it for the fun of it.
I read this somewhere in the interwebs. This gentle nudge to do the thing because it makes me smile. Because it brings me joy. Maybe it brims with the satisfaction of accomplishment. Spills over with active delight.
“Why not?” I think. A small smile, a happy twinge, hovers at the corners of my lips.
It’s hard not to take life too seriously. Hard not to take myself too seriously. I’m often confused by this. Why does it feel like life is a race and we need to know if we’re winning? If we even qualified to gain entry to the race at all?
In the end, who really wins?
Do it for fun.
I like this mantra, but anxiety and the babble of inner critics and the whole host of insecurities, decidedly, Do Not.
It will sound like a third grader.
Ha! Looks like an attempt no one would want to own.
People will laugh at you.
Give up. Now.
Nobody likes you anyhow.
If anyone shows up, they’re only being nice.
Compliments are always inauthentic or flattery.
What do you have to offer?
Of course, someone else will get the job. Everyone is always more qualified than you are.
You’ve tried for years and look how that turned out.
You simply aren’t smart enough. Compelling enough. Dramatic enough. Thoughtful enough. All the not-enoughs. Every single one.
You are a terrible communicator.
You’re too sensitive.
In a matter of milliseconds, the Do it for Fun Parade has been thoroughly and completely drenched.
Another mantra bobs to the surface. One I penned a bit back.
“Try lighter. I think, Try floating with the flow.”
A few lines before these I’d scrawled “Life has not looked like I envisioned, Though I do not always know what I envisioned.”
Maybe I’ve spent so much time panting toward a finish line I can’t even find, I’ve forgotten what it was like to frolic in the fun.
I’ve been sorting through myself. Finding myself a little more. Becoming my own friend. Asking questions about what this means or looks like. What I even want it to look like.
A long time ago, maybe twelve years or fourteen years past, a gentle women in her sixties spoke the kindest words over me. They surprised me then. They surprise me now and I still look over my shoulder for who she was speaking to instead. She told me I was wise and she couldn’t wait to see who I would be at her age. I couldn’t see it. Still can’t. Then and now alike, I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Thirty years ago, I supposed by this age, one had the finish line firmly in hand.
The Jubilee, Poems by John Blase landed in my mailbox last week. On page 6, I read words that have been hovering around me in a hug ever since.
“ It’s not so much that I do not do the good
that I want to do as it is I sometimes do not
do simply because I am unsure what to do.
Some would label this passivity, the same
some who hold assertiveness as a virtue,
although for the life of me I cannot find
that in any sacred text save the american bible.
This same some (apparently) forge through life
with a plan, a map they chart by bolder stars.
I, on the other hand, wake to mild confusion most
days not about the tiny aspects of self-respect
such as brushing my teeth and paying my bills,
but more the big things like my destiny, etc.”
The dragonflies have been flitting, darting, hovering in and out of our backyard this summer. Sometimes above the arcing sprinkler spray; sometimes in gadsome clusters over the green of our little backyard I love, as I make my evening circles watering can in hand.
As I drove home Sunday evening, my good farmer man as passenger, I listened to the last few chapters of my audiobook Strangers by Belle Burden. As her story draws near the end, she sees a circle of dragonflies hovering above her roof. When she searches for the symbolization of dragonflies, she finds they’re often used as a symbol of self-actualization. I like this and I hold this thought. My fingers fly across the keyboard and the Google tells me dragonflies widely symbolize self-actualization, personal transformation, and deep self-realization.
Jeweled wings. Ease of flight. Hum and hover.
Dragonflies look like they live into the fun of it. Settled into themselves they realize this moment is our destiny.
Delight in the day. Hasn’t this been my mantra for years now?
I learn at a snail’s pace.
Destiny is here and now.
It is enough to fry the fish, start the irrigation system, go pick apples. It is enough to laugh out loud, lay in the hammock, let your younger you be welcomed all the way back. It is enough to go to therapy, set the boundary, journal the feelings. It is enough to linger over drinks, to pet the dogs, set out chocolates. It is enough to send the texted encouragement, make the donation, advocate kindness. It is enough to curate community with one or two others, make the phone call, send the postcards. It is enough to pay our bills and brush our teeth and dance with dragonflies.
Delight in the day for the fun of it.
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