When I first discovered the world of learning, I wanted to be a medical examiner.
I have since shifted gears professionally, but maybe not personally. Maybe in my personal life I’m trying to understand this existence around me. I’ve held scalpel in hand, scraping away at the dead cells we find ourselves plastered with.
If you’ve followed me this far, you may want to know this isn’t some long-held murderous instinct running through me, in fact I feel the opposite. I have been drawn to the darkest and lightest parts of humanity in equal spades.
I have been performing autopsies of existence for as long as I can remember. I’m either wonderful or terrible at cocktail party conversation depending on who you ask. I am largely uninterested in what you do for work unless it happens to be something that emblazes your soul. What I am interested in is you. I want to know what enlivens you, what deadens you, what you think you have to be in your world. I want to know who is in your orbit and if that was intentional or if gravity seemingly kept them there. I want to know where you last traveled, and if the destination was outside of your home.
I think this is one of the reasons I became a therapist. I wanted to know the darkest corners and brightest suns and all the shades of gray we wrestle with in between. I wanted to find myself betwixt the polarization our society so often projects upon us.
What I know is this,
Every serious conversation I have had with a brave human being that is willing to be vulnerable leaves me a little less shame-filled and every day I have spent in solitude moves me a little closer to a sense of spirituality.
I am ever-curious about the unfolding anatomy of our lives.
Our skin is our largest organ. It comprises layers over most of our entire body. It serves as protection in its covering of vital organs and systems. To me the aim has not been to thicken the skin so much as to understand what is underneath. Were we to know our deepest insides, imagine what would radiate outwards.
I am not advocating for self-mutilation, but of reflective restoration. I am constantly uncovering parts of myself to bring more into the light. I have this divine source of energy that runs through my veins and I think maybe I have been looking for something to tether it to for all of my life. What I am recognizing is that this insatiable curiosity and openness to experience is what I can anchor myself to; to bask in the uncertainty, while remaining curious about my existence.
I hope to meet you there.