Honey from a Spoon {You Are Always Whole}

And then there are nights when it starts as a tug - a chair pulled up closer, knees touching, choosing to open up, wanting to name something but struggling to find the words or even pinpoint the feeling.

Is it the December dark, a cyclical dip? Is it that "languishing" word from the New York Times article people keep referencing?

Is it fatigue with social media culture, how even "self care" and "rest" feel like the stuff of memes when the realities of both more mundane and more complicated?

Is it an age-old pattern of worrying that if you're not on fire with purpose, passion, and inspiration, there's something wrong with you?

Is it fear of getting older, the empty nest rushing to meet you?

Is it the collapse of civilization as we've known it, with teenagers shooting each other and mental health crises at record highs and wondering where we went wrong and carrying too much of the responsibility for things bigger than you and far beyond your control?

Is it that you've been trying to control so many things, and you need to make peace with the fact that you can only do your part, and the rest is not up to you?

Is it encountering messages left and right that if only you change your mindset, fix your energy, align your stars and polish your chakras that everything will flow in effortless abundance, when the reality is that even when you love your work and love your life, there will be days, weeks, phases when things are just going along, sometimes a slog, sometimes a joy, and mostly a combination of the two because this is real life and not a beautifully crafted website with amazing copy that can make you feel like somehow you're failing?

Is it that you're a parent who is terrified for their kid's wellbeing and can only do so much and has to practice the fucking hard art of trying to balance proactive attention with loving detachment?

Is it that horrid no man's land of overwhelm and too many things meets insufficient? Is it overthinking?

Is it grief or the thing right in front of you too close to see or is it an unreadable poem written in black ink across a night sky, destined to fade come daybreak?

Or is it that sometimes you just need a big cry, an arm around you, a listening ear, some perspective, a reality check, a chance to let it all pour out, without knowing which way is up?

Is it competing impulses, one to connect and the other to unplug?

Is it too much sitting and blaming yourself for too much sitting yet still choosing not to move?

Is it hormonal? Is it midlife?

Is it the need to simultaneously raise some expectations and lower others? Is it burnout? Is it noticing where you forget to extend the same grace to yourself you give so generously to others?

Is it the lie of not enough?

Is it the violence of thinking others don't struggle with these very same questions and maybe you should keep them to yourself lest you sound unhinged?

Is it just? Is it life? Is it just life?

Why yes. Yes, it is.

It is all of these and it is none of these.

It is a wave, a current, a gust, a sideways rush of wind or water in the form of thought and emotion, and you are the body, you are the eye, you are the storm and you are the calm after the storm, too. You are so very, very human, and being so human is sometimes hard and even now, even in the questions and their aftermath, you are always whole. Always.

Believe this.

And when you forget again, which you will, come back to these words and ingest them, like honey from a spoon.