Within Limits

I have my limits. I am a woman. I'm white. I'm twenty-something. I have anxiety...just to name a few. And I struggle. I feel like I'm consistently on the struggle bus of striving to be strong enough, yet feminine enough, culturally-sensitive-and-non-offensive-enough, competent enough, and all the while striving to ensure that it doesn't seem like my struggles confine me. Praying that maybe someday it would seem that i am limitless and have transcended the struggle. The struggle is real.

I found this TED Talk yesterday, and decided I needed to share my thoughts on it. I know, shocker, because I never blog anymore. However, I new i needed to reflect on this, and decided maybe my thoughts might encourage someone else in knowing I'm their seat-buddy on the struggle bus. I wasn't sure what exactly my thoughts on it were at first. However, after a day of reflecting, embracing, letting-go, grasping, and repeatedly struggling with my limitations I came to my end. I am challenged to change.

I feel like this is the reflective challenge I make in every single one of my posts. Maybe that's why I've stopped writing for so long. However, though I feel challenged to change. Not new. Futhermore, I'm feeling challenged to change my perspective. Also, not new. However, maybe where I've gone wrong before is in what I perceive to be the goal. I feel like in my daily walk of perfectionistic tendencies, I'm always striving to be better. Be more. Develop. Grow. I don't want to stay the same, making the same mistakes. So I push my self to eat a little healthier, move a little more, fine-tune my resume. And I get caught in the balance of thriving and failing where I strive. If it's not in the physical sense, it's in the mental sense where I find myself striving to change my perspective. Take every thought captive. See the joy. Be thankful. And as my flaws get in the way I stumble and find myself back on the struggle bus.

This is where I found myself as I watched this video. The thought slowly began to creep in my head: what if I'm ok? What if my limits (these things that feel like prison walls I'm consistently trying to escape) are actually my road to freedom?

I pause.
Reflect.

In the words of Elizabeth Gilbert: "Ruin is the road to restoration."

I breathe.
Sigh.
I'm OK.

My circumstances do not define me nearly as much as what I do with them. Like an artist viewing a canvas as an end, so I have been making my limits a handicap. Yet an artist is not bound by a border, instead he lets his creativity flow with what he has. He does not look at the tools he has been given and sigh in frustration. Instead he looks in wonder at the possibilities and gets to work at extracting beauty from the ashes. So I refrain. Looking at the seemingly ashes of my own life, I lay down my confines and embrace the possibilities.

I am a woman. I am often emotional. I cry often. I struggle between the balance of trying to be strong, yet being feminine. I struggle, because I walk along side little girls who have had the unfathomable thrust upon them, because they are little girls.

I am white and though I am the majority at large, on many personal occasions I am the minority. Being from the country, having limited Spanish. I AM country. I know absolutely nothing about being a inner-city black kid from East St. Paul. And when I hang out with my Latino friends I have absolutely NO idea what is going on.

I am a twenty-something with anxiety. I, again, get emotional. I struggle to appear competent, yet not appear to think I know everything. Afraid I said to much or said to little. Full of life decisions. I'm told to relax and enjoy the moment, but the real world is a big place with insurance, taxes, and bills. Overwhelmed? Yes.

I know my limits, and at time they seem overwhelming. An most of the time I am working to overcome. I want to transcend, but maybe the secret to freedom is not in escaping, but embracing. As I let go of my expectations for what I should be, and begin to hold loosely the limits given to me, I find them grow and expand until I see them more clearly. Holding in both hands and owning what I have been given, I see that my tools cannot change, but with them I can create.

 I can create beauty and a home. I can share my opinions and thoughts, and though it may not always be with my voice and words, I can hold my head up high and I can live. A life that is not defeated by the storms, but instead is made stronger. I can be a shelter to others, a rock for others as the Lord is my rock. And I can love despite the struggle, in the midst of adversity, it the midst of darkness I can show love to the least of these. I may not always understand, and may not speak into a situation, but hugs are not given with words. The present of presence is sometimes the greatest gift of all. So I will be present with everything I have.

Limits do not define us. What defines us is what we make of them, so I plan to make the most of them.