Epiphany. It's not just a good name for a b-list celebrity's baby. The word is defined in the dictionary (well...dictionary.com) as a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.
And this concept is so beautiful to me that I feel almost high just thinking about it. It's this idea of absolute clarity that I've chased my entire life...or, at LEAST since middle school...I would have loved to have had one single thought about existence that was so intensely clear to me, that I could have been able to transcend the horrors of generic 7th grade hell and risen above my station as a nervous 12 year old, transforming into someone who was calm, elegant, and empowered...everything that adolescence is not.
But it never came. Or if it did, I certainly didn't recognize it.
In my adult life, I have noticed myself craving this all over again - this ultimate answer that would untangle years of volatile relationships with people who have claimed to know me best and answer probing questions about my late-blooming career and fragile finances:
Why were people who claimed to care about me causing me so much pain? Why am I such a screw-up when it comes to organization? When did I start putting so much energy into holding myself back?
I've searched for answers to these questions in a multitude of stereotypical ways (think shrinks, not sherpas), but I've continued to come up empty handed over and over again.
I was so damn sure for so damn long that if I could just solve these individual puzzles, my epiphany would come...It would be one of those situations where I'd work long and hard figuring out the reasons for every negative thing in my life and then, in one cinematic moment of clarity (hiking atop a green hillside somewhere) it would all come together - twinkling twilight, circling hawks and all.
But it didn't happen that way. Not even close. It was in the middle of a challenging week, riddled with pain and stress, fighting traffic on the 10 west with a busted out car window and a sore throat, that my mind wandered searching for answers to these decade old of questions of self-doubt. And this is were I FINALLY had my epiphany.
It was this moment, stuck on the freeway in the oppressive summer heat that I realized this - the epiphany isn't always in figuring out the answer...sometimes the TRUE epiphany is the realization that you can give yourself permission to stop asking the question.
It was in that moment that I knew my constant search for answers was the very thing that was holding me back - that if I could just let go of that desire to chase down those mysteries, fraught with self-pity, and focus on moving forward, that THIS would ultimately be where I would find my strength.
So I did.
And with the letting go of those questions, I have let go of a LOT of heartache and confusion. And though I haven't replaced the space with anything else yet, I have at least made room for the possibility of something else, something more positive to grow in its place.
