as good as it gets

January 21, 2022

It was my 3rd day in Mexico City and I’m not entirely sold. There is always an adjustment period that is hard to remember while it’s being lived. I try to speak Spanish and French comes out. I haven’t actually done much other than write, which is what I came here to do. My Airbnb is freezing and after a couple nights of getting into bed at 6pm I regained the energy I expended packing up my house to get ready for this trip and I've finally arrived.

This morning I opened all 3 doors to my private courtyard and knocked tasks off a months old to do list. As Harley and I left the main courtyard to get tacos, I leaned down to pick up her poo and I turned my head to the right following a bright light. As I looked up I saw the beautiful white edifice of the building reflecting the sun. Its three cascading balconies were accented with red bricks and offset by the green of the many plants. The sky was bright blue and clear. The sun was warm.

"This is it. This is as good as it gets.”

So why, in that moment was my mind casting about in existential anguish? Why was I horrifically disappointed?

Having is the end of wanting. They cannot co-exist. In order to have, what you want must die. A life long daydreamer like my father, much of my life has been lived out in fantasy. I preferred what could have been because it mirrors the ideal of what could be, how life would be if everything was just right.

In my life I call these peak moments. Maslow would call it self actualization. "According to the hierarchy of needs, self-actualization represents the highest-order motivations, which drive us to realize our true potential and achieve our 'ideal self.’” This is only available to us when all the other needs are all met. That is quite a tall order and why mine have been when I’m high on love or a mountain top or a psychedelic.

Here I am in Mexico City, my love affair with the French Existentialist cut short and my life taking an unexpected hard right south of the border, following two friends who I’d happily follow anywhere. Yesterday I was cold and grumpy and today I bent over to pick up poop and collided with the timeline of my true and ideal self.

I know when it’s happening because it hits me like a truck full of bricks. All of a sudden I’m struck with deep gratitude for the present moment, for the beauty around me, the love I feel from myself and others. I grasp that rare and unshakable sense that everything is just as it should be. This is a notion that, while harder to admit in life’s poignantly difficult moments, is quite comforting to.

When life is that beautiful, I always cry. It breaks my heart. Heartbreak is heartbreak from any end of the spectrum - it hurts. I cry because I have to. I simply can’t stand that much beauty. Luckily for me it never lasts long. How like the divine to come in small sips, break us with grace, then retreat as the wool of our habitual lives slips back over our eyes, though perhaps a bit thinner each time.

For a long time I didn’t cry. I was tired of my problems, bored of the merry-go-round wheel of my childhood trauma, the heavy emotions that circled but never drained. I decided I was done with my pain, but I didn’t realize I would be done with joy as well. I didn’t cry, but I didn’t shine or giggle either. I stayed where I was safe, just below baseline trying not to draw any attention to myself. This was no way to live, but it was worth a try.

In the years since, I built a business that met my physiological and safety needs. Staying in Austin all that time allowed me to form deep friendships with people I admire that met my needs for love and belonging. Those combined foster my self esteem. This created an environment that was safe enough inside and outside for me to explore the darker places I was avoiding and still feel held, thereby healing those wounds. I dared to reveal more and more of myself in my relationships and my work. As I found my voice, I felt moved to share it, which gave me a sense of purpose that feels like a brush with god, to find a way on this earth to just be me.

Things may not have worked out the way I thought they would a month ago, but I’m so grateful that my heart gets broken by beauty more and more.