Love brings true happiness. That is what I came to write after expressing what I felt Bertrand Russell meant when he said “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” The trip back to Mass for Gram’s funeral this past week was perhaps one of the best I have ever had. I had time to reflect about the choices I have made, and feel comfortable in my own skin. Reconnecting with my past, and calibrating who I was as a child, where I stopped for sometime as a young adult, and where I am today has really been a gift.I tend to write a lot about choices. I guess that is because even the choice not to make a choice is still a choice in it’s own right, and every choice we make takes to another point in our journey where we will again be faced with a new set of choices. Case in point: the choice to stay up late last night left me with a choice to wash my hair or not wash my hair. Neither impacted my ultimate end of getting up and showering and going to work, but the choice to leave my hair tied back did allow me to sleep an extra 30 minutes. Thank you very much.
February 2008 I had the right idea about choices. I wrote about participating in your life, owning decisions, walking lines, and following your heart. The missing piece that left my soul searching shallow and largely ineffective was eliminating the risk mitigation. I love to analyze. I am good at it. In fact it is my favorite part of my job, and being able to do it daily is ultimately what keeps me from putting down my papers, and walking right the fuck out of that shitty as process. I don’t take long to weigh pro’s and con’s, extract my emotions, and take an objective decision in what I feel is my best interest. Using my ability to analyze my life became a way for me to mitigate the risk associated with living. I had no idea that what I was doing to myself was actually running a business and not a life. No clue what I was missing out on by instituting caution as a best practice was eliminating my ability to experience the very best part of life- Living. In mid 2008, a good friend asked me if I had ever had “that rush” if I had ever “felt the world stop when someone walked in the room” or if I ever “just didn’t think”. I remember scoffing at the question, as if to say “Well yeah of course I have.” I then remember pausing as he walked away to ask myself ” Haven’t I?”
October 2009- the most pivotal time in my life, when I realized there was nothing I could do to make my husband be a happy person. I realized that try as I may, if he was unhappy, no amount of changes or risk analysis I could make or do would change how he chose to live his life every day. February 2010 -the second most pivotal time in my life, what the initial realization primed me for, was practically a stranger stripping down all my facades and unlocking all my secrets, then forcing me to see myself for what I am, and in essence what I was doing to myself. Without the initial realization, I never would have been open to hearing about how every day that I denied the very existence of what makes me an amazing human, that chaining my heart down, and belittling into nonexistence any trace of sensitivity, was, in fact, breaking my spirit. Anyone who knows me, knows my dog Gus. He is quirky, funny, mannered, and over all a source of unending joy in my life. If you go on facebook right now you will see that his album is titled “The light of my life”. It seems that it was ok for me to be soft and sensitive toward this amazing creature. I truly believe that his “love” for me, and my love for him kept that part of me alive for 4 years.
What I know now about life and love is that in order to truly experience these things you have to set down the Pareto charts plotting and graphing the potential risks associated to a choice or series of choices, and go “all in”. I know now that I can roll out of bed being the source of unending joy in someone’s life, and get all the love and appreciation I deserve for being that source without asking. I know now that being understood completely and without exception is precisely what I always dreamed it would be if it existed. I know now that I don’t have to sacrifice any piece of who I am to get everything I never dreamed was never going to be available to me. I recently told my father, after him expressing concern for me “I just don’t want you to get hurt Katie”, that “I know what I am and I know who I am and I know what I want. I wake up every day happier than I ever thought possible. I am understood, and this feeling I hold in my heart is worth every associated risk. If it all ended tomorrow I would be devastated, but to know that I am capable of this level of emotion is irreplaceable. At this point I am playing with house money.”
