My heart is breaking. Repeatedly. With resistance. I don’t want my heart to break. I desperately want my heart to break. Fear and desire warring within me. I want to feel what it means to fully be human. What are we capable of, us amazing human creatures?

We are amazing. We care for one another in cliched way after cliched way. Helping a neighbor in a wheelchair walk their dog. Explaining a homework problem to a child so they can go back to school feeling confident. Hosting a neighborhood potluck. Volunteering at a shelter. Organizing peace marches. We dream and create. We problem solve even while we create problems faster than we can solve them. 

I want to be a better version of what it means to be human. What am I capable of? I want to know. But to reach my capacity means to push the edges of the known and comfortable.  To reach out past my own limiting beliefs of pain and what the past has taught me to expect. I have an amazingly privileged life. My past has been kinder than most. I’ve never been raped or beaten. I’ve always had enough to eat unless I was voluntarily skipping a meal. I’ve always had a safe place to sleep. Even if my family was fighting with each other and with money, I was never on the brink of being homeless. I’ve been taught to think and value myself. I’ve been taught to problem solve and care. My past is not insurmountable. I can be a better human.

Yet, trying to be a better human is it’s own trap. The constant striving to be better, to have a life worthy of Instagram and Pintrest. To be worthy of love and belonging. That’s one of the best traps. Just keep trying and someday you might get there. Buy this, do that, say this and keep twisting on your own fears and stories, the ones handed down to you one generation to the next. “Give up,” whispers one voice in your ear. “Do better,” whispers (or is that shouts?) the voice in your other ear. Pulled this way and that, where do you turn for the truth? 

To not care is to be trapped. Trapped in a meaningless existence of busyness going from one thing to the next and trying to stay ahead of the numbing boredom and depression. 

To care and to strive is also a trap. Trapped in a constant state of never enough. You can never be or do or have enough to truly change what it means to be human. Both caring and striving and not caring and giving up leave no room for loving what we have right now. Loving the you that you are right now. Me loving the me that I am right now. Not agrandizing myself to be all wonderful, amazing, and perfect. Not tearing myself down with words about how I’m not good enough, not going to make a difference, not relevant enough, and shouldn’t even try. 

This is about being human. Right now. Right now. Again and again showing up as myself, you showing up as yourself. Neither agrandizing nor tearing down but a wide-open tightrope of middle ground where all it takes is being honest and showing up. 

What are you capable of?