We Matter

"Variation on the Word Sleep" by Margaret Atwood*

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

We matter.  We matter to ourselves and to others that we have no idea of.  We should not worry about mattering to anyone else than ourselves.  Our integrity, our very purpose, evolves not from trying to meet other people's expectations, but meeting our own.  It takes courage to live the life you want.  It DOES become too late to fix dreams and wishes of the past, so it is imperative that we do what we can, with what we have, right now.

We had a sense that we mattered when we exited University to start our careers, got married, had children, in whatever order.  We mattered in our families, in our homes, in our work, in social settings. We believed we mattered.  We can look back and see that was true.  But, as we age, and our contacts get less and less, and we do less and less, our only matter is if we continue to find ways to do something to make our world a better place, even our inner space a better place.  

Our feelings matter to only us.  Not many others will think it matters if we suffer in silence.  Not many others really care how our feelings are.  We worried, some of us, all our lives that we might disrupt harmony.  Was that out of fear?  Did we swallow our feelings because we did not want to be a burden to others?  Did we withhold truths because we did not want to upset a relationship?  Did we become bitter because we did not say, "I am feeling..." and what truth we had to tell was untold?  Once we realize our angst does not bother anyone else but us, then we can realize what harm holding some feelings in and what feelings need be shared.

It matters that we have friends.  We have to not be too in to ourselves, to busy, to off-and-away-on-new-adventures to maintain the friendships we have.  As we age, these friendships become more and more important.  Our friendship with self is baseline.  How we treat ourselves, how we honor ourselves, trickles into all our relationships.  Our friends are who inject happiness into our lives, as does family, of course, but those spur of the moment laughter that creeps from head to toes.. that kind if laughter must happen often.  

Speaking of happiness, we must have things that make us happy no matter the outcome.  Happiness is a choice but made easier by little things that may the soul lurch.  Being unafraid of change, of risk, of success and failure, those things will make us, and keep us, happy.  

What ends our life, we cannot know.  We can go kicking and screaming, full of fear and regrets, or we can learn to love who we are and what we are doing.  What matters will be that bitter look that a mortician will try to turn into a soft smile on our face, or a sweet last sigh of dearness that shows we are happy with how it has gone.

Be something that matters to yourself.

©Carol Desjarlais 7.1.19