La Muerte Que Me Falta

Mexico City, Mexico

“Dadme la muerte que me falta,” Rosario Castellanos, Mystic Mexican poet

Give me the death I need.

We experience many deaths over a lifetime. It is in the death of something, or, to euphemize the phrase, in its ending, that new life, something new can arise. While the life-death cycle is a natural part of our existence, many of us fear the stage of death. It looms upon many of us with great dread, heavy anxiety, and paralyzing terror. We fear the end of many things - relationships, jobs, days, a party, our structured academic career….Yet without death, we cannot be reborn.

Without laying something to rest, we cannot welcome in the new. We cannot embrace the exuberant energy of something that better aligns with who we truly are or what is meant for us.

It is common to fear the unknown and difficult to face the absoluteness of finality. The familiar simply feels good. It is comfortable. It is cozy. But what is to be gained in laying to rest a chapter of our lives? What is to be released to make room for the new? We must take our time to grieve what once was and honor its importance, that may be necessary. But do we allow the grief dissuade us from hope? Do we let the trepidation consume us? As we lay to rest what must, how do we look forward? Do we choose fear over faith?

Anxiety and excitement are but two fruits of the same tree. Two feelings tied to the constraint of time, ever mindful of the future. One is mingled with fear while the latter is filled with hope and trust. 

Choosing between the two takes discipline and commitment, but we owe it to ourselves if we want to live the life that we all deserve. We have already proven our resiliency to ourselves. We have already proven that we can handle whatever comes into our lives. 

I recently laid to rest a promising career. It was promising in both financial security and mental stagnation. Yet, what has weighed more heavily on me is not my ability to provide for myself, but the illusion of success my career provided me.

A career means much more than financial security, it equates to social acceptance. I found a substantial amount of security from a job title backed by a piece of paper that I never received. The same day I graduated with my master’s degree, I was told that they had no record of me paying a parking ticket and were therefore withholding my diploma. I merely shrugged and drove away from campus, playing “Never Coming Back Again" by Fleetwood Mac.

5 years. 11 semesters. And $100,000 plus later. I never bothered to get my diploma.

This is not reflective of my cavalierness, but how important it was to me.

I celebrated my so-called accomplishment with a backpacking trip with Southeast Asia. Now, THAT was something I wanted visual proof of. I found myself in the bigness of the other side of the world. At some point I was hit with the jarring realization that I didn’t want to be a speech therapist. The truth was well-known to every part of my being except for my conscious self. The voice of my spirit during that trip was too loud for the conscious part to ignore. But what was I supposed to do? I had a very specific degree that qualified me to do one thing only.

5 years. 11 semesters. $100,000 plus in tuition. T minus 4 months until the bills start rolling in. I felt stuck and quite lost back on home, far from Asia and even further from my dreams. The thought to open the internet browser to search of a job never even crossed my mind.

Yet one found me. I knew a guy (a woman from childhood). No interview. No resume. I just sent over my transcripts and licensure details and once again trekked down a path that I thought I should follow.

It was Universe telling me, “not now".

And for good reason. Everything happens in its time and my experience in those years supported me and morphed me into the person I am today. There were moments of joy, moments of pride, and moments of purpose. In the end, it took me a decade to come to the same truth I knew at 22 years of age. This line of work just wasn’t for me.

Arriving to that conclusion was easy. Making the decision to leave it was not. I was essentially immobilized by the false sense of success, security, and identity I received in having a degree and a socially praised profession. One of the first of five questions you’re asked upon meeting someone is “what do you do?”. If we tether our identity and sense of worth to something that doesn’t fully serve us, are we practicing some form of self-abandonment?

The answer for myself is “yes”. A series of intentional manifestations later, and I make the official decision to leave my profession behind. I lay to rest a job that wasn’t fully serving me and an out-dated definition of success.

In its place I recreate my definition of success. And what is that? The first word that comes to mind is adventure. Then contentment. Balance. Being in love with every moment of life. Being unshakeable. Seeing the pain in others when they do bad. Success is trust. In my body. My heart. My inner voice. My journey. Trust that all is wonderfully unfolding. From a professional standpoint, success to me is making a living doing something that I’m inspired by, something that invigorates me, something that leaves a powerful wave of emotion wash over me and my heart skipping a beat.

It is grounding myself in this truth of mine that I am able to navigate the pangs of insecurity I feel when my choice is challenged or when, quite simply, I’m asked what I do for work. I lay to rest a line of work that served me well so that new one can come into existence. One that is more aligned with who I truly am. One that allows my light to shine all the more luminously.

The insecurity acts a means for me to dissuade myself from believing in my choice. So, I look inward and ask, “how does it feel? This journey that’s unfolding, how does it feel?”.

It feels right.

And this is how I choose faith over fear. This day and this day forth.