The Return of the Gunk

"The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of it, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege."
                                                                                                                   ---Marilynn Robinson

Just when I felt I shed a heavy coat of gunk in this year-long endeavor to de-gunk, I chose to pick up the mantle of shit again and place it squarely on my shoulders.

Because the truth is, as much as I don't want to admit it, the gunk cannot stick unless I let it, so it really is me choosing the gunk as much as it is the world dumping it.

If there is one thing I am not good at it's letting the gunk roll away from me like water flowing off an oily road. I am more like the summer soil in a warm storm, ready to incorporate into my being all that happens to come my way.

What part of me listens to the criticisms? Which part of me believes they are right? Who is that person in me that is willing to believe the hurtful  things others say?

Someone told me I just need to not care. To shut it out, create a facade of joviality.
So I worked on doing that, and I kept waiting for it to be easy, for it to be second-nature to just shut-off my heart, like shutting off the ignition before you get out of the car.

But it never came easily. And I finally realized that for me, I don't want it to get easy.

I am going to keep sitting in my vulnerability. I am going to keep pulling back the bones shielding my heart. And when I am knocked onto the floor, I am going to keep getting up.

And up.

And up.

The world is full of feelings. Not all of them are pleasant. But they are all worth it. You can only decipher the highest high when you have the measuring stick of the lowest low. And far be it from me to judge which is which.