Not being able to be awake for more than a few minutes at a time is by no means my favorite way to live, but it definitely seems to be one of the best ways for me to learn. Perhaps this is why I’ve been so sick for so long- because while God hasn’t always given me what I’ve wanted, he’s always given me what I’ve needed in life. I’m coming to the conclusion that I need struggle in my life, it’s how I internalize truth and answers.
One of the greatest disappointments of the last six months for me has been having to stop ice skating, not just because of the deep love and joy I experience while doing it, but also because of what it represented to me: the belief that over time I was getting stronger and my heart was getting better, that I might finally be getting healthy, and the freedom that would ultimately bring.
Each week and month I’ve hoped that the worst was over and that I was finally on the mend again. A good day here, a good day there, gave me hope. Then another series of heart episodes would come and I was plunged right back, reliving two dark decades of memories of doctors, hospitals, surgeries, months in bed, and prescription roulette.
After all of the striving and sacrificing, facing my fears, and working towards my dreams in whatever ways I could, in tiny little pieces when necessary, refusing to give up when setbacks came, only to end up, yet again, watching the shadows of the days passing across the ceiling of my room… Six years ago it would have been devastating. As it stands now, it hurts, but it isn’t the same.
I’ve had inklings and tastes of some important understanding I’ve needed over the past few months, but it was only during the past two weeks of being in twenty-four hour meditation mode that an important realization finally took hold of me and firmly rooted itself in: I don’t have to be successful in an endeavor for it to be worthy to pursue. The true blessing of big dreams is not in the fruits of their achievement, but in what working towards those dreams works inside of you.
For the goal and achievement-oriented person that I am, this understanding was nothing short of revolutionary, but it’s hardly a new idea. I read and admired it months ago, taping it to my bathroom mirror before I got really sick again. It’s in a poem by Rilke:
A Walk
Already my gaze is upon the hill, the sunny one,
at the end of the path which I’ve only just begun.
So we are grasped, by that which we could not grasp,
at such great distance, so fully manifest-
And it changes us, even when we do not reach it,
into something that, hardly sensing it, we already are;
a sign appears, echoing our own sign…
But what we sense is the falling winds.
“… and it changes us, even when we do not reach it, into something that, hardly sensing it, we already are…” I love that, and I am realizing more and more that it is true, by seeing it in myself.
Even if I never skate again, that time and effort was not wasted. It changed me and in the change, brought me back to myself- my true self, but stronger.
Stronger because I’m now more sure than ever of who I really am in my soul. Stronger because I’m less and less inclined to try to be, or to impress, anyone else. That’s a gift. And it’s freedom.
Having your body do what you wish it to do is a beautiful freedom and joy. Freedom from the warped thoughts and ideas that make us ashamed and afraid to be true to our best and most authentic selves is joy too- a supreme one.
For me, being trapped in a body I cannot will into good health has helped give me appreciation and respect for having a body in the first place- sick or well. It’s also brought me many moments of exquisite joy: feeling the motion and altering textures of water in a shower, tub, or sink; warmth and energy in sunbeams, coolness and awe in moonlight; the sounds and smell of ice and blades and a moment when something in my body synchs and movement suddenly becomes easy, my muscles awake and warm and strong, lifting off for a moment and landing on an edge that once was precarious, but this time propels me along.
Ice skating is the closest to the flying sensation in dreams that I’ve ever come. It brought me friends, it increased my courage, and it made me more passionate in every other aspect and endeavor of my life. I’ve really missed it. But I still have it. Inside me, skating is still there. Not just in the memory of it, but in how it changed me, and how it restored precious parts of me and then gave them back to myself, but better.
Trapped in a body I have not been able to will into good health, the forced down, quiet, and pondering time in the moments between sleep and wakefulness has restored and returned precious parts of me to myself. It’s also taught me: Success isn’t required to be happy in life. Endeavoring is.
The post What I’ve Learned from Rilke, Extended Illness, and My Ice Skating Endeavor appeared first on Melanie Boudwin.
