As she was collecting her leafy treasures, she did something all toddlers do. She started tearing and crumpling them. I've read destructive behavior is a natural part of toddler exploration. If you look at various pieces of furniture, almost every children's book in the house, and just the general state of constant disarray in our home, you would know that our daughter is an expert at such "exploration."
She seemed to notice something about the leaves as she was trying to disassemble them. The brown leaves were much easier to destroy than the green ones. As I watched her fascinated consternation, a thought flashed through my mind: We are stronger when we are alive than when we are not.
Now, this would be a point at which someone might accuse me of going all "Captain Obvious," because of course, we are stronger when we are living than when we are dead. That's not really what I mean. What I mean is that we are stronger when we are engaged in the process of living than when we are not.
As an introvert, I often relish in the comfort and safety of cocooning here at home, and figuratively "snuggling" with all the things that make me feel at ease and secure. Sometimes, being "checked out" from the rest of the world is like unwrapping a Godiva milk chocolate with almonds bar. I always anticipate the way it's going to enfold me like a warm and gentle hug.
But also as an introvert, I recognize that my need for quiet and down time by myself can leave me off on the sidelines of my own life. Staying in our sheltered, comfortable places can prevent us from the experience of truly being alive. It might make us feel safer and protected from harm, but it also puts us at risk for being more easily crumpled and torn to bits.
Someone in a management position once told me that we "grow outside of our comfort zones." By now, that's a giant cliche, and at the time, he was using it to pressure me into something that was not in my own self-interest. But, there is a great deal of validity in that statement, inside the professional spaces of our lives, and in the "living" spaces of our lives.
A few years ago, my husband encouraged me to go on what seemed like a crazy huge trip--all by myself. It was a trip to New England that involved airline travel, booking hotels, renting and driving a car. I felt a little anxious about doing all of those things by myself--not because I'm not capable, but because it meant I had to potentially fail at any or all of these things and there would be no one to catch my fall. As it happened, I missed one flight connection and I found myself lost trying to get to Edgar Allan Poe's house in Baltimore (it was right under my nose the whole time, but not well marked).
Up until this trip, I had always had a travel partner, or there was very little chance of failure. The only non-traditional things I routinely did by myself were go out to eat and the movies. The only thing that made me feel any sense of security is that most things can be remedied with a credit card.
That trip to Baltimore, and then to Salem was so amazing. There is something fabulously liberating about traveling on your own. You are literally free to make all of the decisions, and to explore in ways that you just can't when you are being considerate of someone else's feelings. When I got back to my room at the end of each day, I was gloriously exhausted, but also so inspired and invigorated. I thought as deeply as I breathed, every single day. I wrote every single day. I lived every single day. I swear, It's better than dessert.
And it changed me. I have no doubt that I could do it again, and with even more pleasure, because it's not as hard as I thought it would be. I believe I could take on an even more challenging trip after that success. And I believe I could help someone else do it. It made me an "expert," or at least an expert in the eyes of a few of my friends. Sometimes that's all you need to be. It was only about five days, but what it did for my self-confidence was nothing short of spectacular.
Sometimes simple risks like going out to dinner alone, or taking a trip alone can teach us so much about ourselves as well as the world around us. And doing such things always reminds me how important it is to "live." Friends have praised my "courage" to go it alone, and tell me how they could never do something like that. My response always is that if I was alone and wanted to do something, I can't imagine letting that keep me from doing it. What a waste that would be.
Life hands all of us a bushel of things to sort through, live through, and learn through. Some of those things are joyous and wonderful, while others take the wind out of our sails and leave us doubting everything. I think the more opportunities we take to truly live, the more opportunities we find to strengthen who we are and become who we truly want to be. It allows us to offer so much more to the people we care about.
Sometimes that means we try things and fail. We may try to take on a new career or job and realize that it's just not something for which we were cut out. We may move someplace we have always dreamed of living, only to find it isn't a dream come true. But sometimes it means we soar. We may go back to school to restart our lives or to fulfill a hope in our hearts that has nagged us for years. We may pursue that job we've been passionate about since vet school, or we might even buy our own practice. We may go out on a limb and allow ourselves to believe what we have to say or share can have meaning for others. We may write that novel. We might become mothers or fathers late in life, and understand what we would have missed if we hadn't taken the risk.
And we may be surprised to find our place, even through our failures.
But if we don't take those chances, we're just as vulnerable as that brown leaf in my toddler's hands. We are more, we are stronger, we are fuller, when we fully live. And when we do that, it is much harder for others to tear us apart, because we know who we truly are and what we have lived.
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