Interiority

This morning, I decided to tackle the inbox of my personal email account. There were thousands of emails, mostly junk, and so much clutter that I needed to sift through and unsubscribe from. There were also some good things that I had missed over the past few years, buried as they were under the clutter. One such gem was an email, subject line: “Watch this!” that I had sent to myself Jan 3, 2019, at 3:20pm, with a Ted Talk entitled “The art of being yourself” by Caroline McHugh attached. I have no idea where I stumbled upon it on that Thursday afternoon (I looked it up) in January nearly three years ago, but I had obviously wanted to watch it and didn’t have time.

In my pre-pandemic life, the idea of taking 27 minutes to watch a Ted Talk seemed like a luxury unavailable to me even on a weekend. Today, I took the 27 minutes and watched Caroline McHugh discuss, in her lovely Scottish brogue, the importance of “interiority” in becoming our best selves. Her talk resonated with me the way my 2019-self knew that it would.

I had a moment this past October when it hit me hard that I am, optimistically speaking, middle aged. Multiply my current age by two, and you get 92. According to Google, life expectancy in the state of Idaho is 79.4. It is very optimistic for me to suppose that I have 30 productive years ahead of me in which to travel and write and love and help and experience and become. I do not want to spend a single day feeling inferior or superior or seeking reassurance. In the time remaining, I want to be a verb. I want to spend my time creating and loving and helping and experiencing and becoming fully myself.

12.29.21