Doing no longer

Since I was pregnant I've been agonizing over something nameless. Even when I escaped the dreaded bout of post-partum depression (I think partly because I was fulfilling one of my true vocations) there was still a struggle muddling my happiness. Reading Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak today while my baby slept beside me, I finally had a moment of clarity.

Since Aidan's birth I've been trying to establish goals, guidelines, figuring out reasonable expectations of myself (and my husband). I was constantly tempted to compare myself with my idea of pioneer women as well as getting overwhelmed with interior design ideas. All the while trying to live by affirming beliefs about breastfeeding, attachment parenting, and spiritual/natural living. Essentially my unnamed struggle was between Doing and Being. I'm rebellious by nature and have always resisted labels put on me like dramatic, emotive, perky, muppet-like, a tease etc. What I was blind to were the labels I was creating for myself: strong woman, progressive catholic, musician, actor, feminist. It makes casual conversation less personal, less time-consuming if we can flash those titles into someone else's mind. But as my life changes there are labels I can't deny like wife and stay-at-home mom that don't create an accurate picture of my life in my own mind or anyone else's. This is not an original epiphany, but it is my current experience — the interior work of being right now blows away all those doing labels. When people ask how I'm doing I'm flummoxed because the answer isn't very interesting/telling — I did laundry or dishes (but I'm not a very good housekeeper) — I am doing some singing but that's not going to fill a Christmas card, neither is my husband's job switch from the romance of bookselling to something with more financial security. The struggle has been how to describe our being with a doing vocabulary and it has finally sunk in that I don't have to. I am still gifted and using my gifts but (and this goes beyond getting a paycheck) I can no longer hide behind labels to define my being.

So this year's Christmas card and hopefully my conversation will reflect this revelation. Let me tell you how I am. I am practicing being responsible, honest, intuitive, and graceful in ways that are challenging. I am beginning to align my head with my heart, "my insides with my outsides" (28 Days). I am not cooped up at home, my talents wasting away. I am vibrantly being, using the gifts I have in nameless ways, because they "must be given" (Palmer). I don't need to prove it by writing a mental resume. It is enough to be.