The Grey Area
June started off with adventure. After being locked in and isolated for the past year, I got the opportunity to spread my wings and take flight. I got the opportunity to experience people and places. I got the opportunity to reconnect with past relationships and create new ones. This month is only half over and I feel so full of people and conversations. I have hugged and laughed. I have golfed in 110 degree weather and looked at Denali on a clear midnight sky. Even though I need a vacation from my vacation, the time away filled me up with experiences and connections that I forgot how much I needed. We have all had our heads weighed down this past year. We have all “poded” up with our few chosen people. We have all sacrificed parts of our sanity. And now we get to remember what it’s like to squeeze your best friend on their birthday or smile at a stranger who soon becomes a friend.
The everyday of isolation has taken away the big picture. We were given blinders and told to look only as far as the next moment, the next day. We made ourselves busy with household projects and zoom dates. We made going to the grocery store a big outing. And traveling to an out of town doctors visit a major feat. We have been so busy looking at what’s right in front of us that a lot of us have forgotten that life is happening in the cracks and the spaces. And these lives and experiencers have been patiently waiting for us. Getting away and connecting with people has reminded me that we learn a lot from the experiences we embrace and the relationships we intersect with. But also, it is a good reminder that we are such unique humans who come at life from all different places and spaces.
Our uniqueness needs to be embraced and enjoyed as we venture out from the apocalyptic world we were handed. It is time we embrace the grey, the area between “good” and bad,” the area between “right” and “wrong.” There is just too much color in life to settle for one or the other, there is too much fun to be had when we are neither/or. And we need to allow others to find their own grey area, especially as we are given the opportunity to shed a few layers and open our views to the newness of now.
This is the time that we can redefine who we are and who we want to be. We can transform ourselves into the person we want to be. We can see our own faults and create successes out of them. We can see our owns flaws and create strengths from them. And most importantly, we can take judgement away from ourselves and the people around us and find awareness and understanding in everything. A lot can happen when we start to see things in the grey area. Life is not meant to be right and wrong, life is meant to be a progression of lessons learned and experiences had. And without conversations we have missed out on some of the empathy, some of the hardships that people don’t share or wear.
Sometimes we are hit out of the blue with the hardest challenges. We are given little tools to get through it and all we want to do is know when it is going to be over. We want the bad times to disappear into a lost memory bank where time and emotion are forgotten. Unfortunately that is not how life works, and in all honesty don’t we want to experience the process. Instead of wishing the time away, instead of living in the past or the unknowing future, there is the right now. There are the moments that we live every single day. There are the stresses, the confusion, the unknowing. But there is also love and friendship, there is decisions and opportunities. These are times that should not be wished away. They should not find their way to a lost spot in your memories. These are the moments that can shape our next phase in life. These are the moments that can define who you are capable of becoming.
I am far from perfect and most of the time my life looks more like a shit show than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There are days that feel like ultimate failures and days that feel too heavy to carry. But when life moves into the grey area, it is no longer about the failures but about the lessons learned living somewhere in between. It’s about the growth and experiences that happen when we can embrace who we really are. Right now, I am enjoying the intimacy of conversations, and conversations not about Covid. I am enjoying the individuality we are all bringing to the table after way too long of isolation. I am enjoying the rainbow of colors that fall into the grey area.