Stems and Roots

June 25, Mark Nepo

The Love we show saves the Love we hide,
the way a sprig in the sun feeds its unseen root.
Even though I believe in living in the open, parts of me hide. I can't help it. But what I can help is which parts of me - the open or the hidden - run my life. What I can rely on is this inexplicable knowing that when I am in the open, life nourishes even those parts so sorely hidden.
Just as green stems in spring stay connected to their darker roots, just as the roots grow when the stems do, my compassion soothes my fear where I can't see. Unknown to me, my love feeds the underside of my confusion. The light I take in keeps the roots of my soul alive.
We become so preoccupied with what we are not able to address, what we are not able to mend, what we are not able to leave behind, that we forget that whatever we are in the light of day is slowly, but surely, healing the rest of us. 

I remembered again as I read today's passage just how much of my life has been lived in hiding. I have always been a very discreet person, more private than outgoing, and have been that way intentionally and also as a product of how I was raised. When you grow up constantly hearing "I don't want to know; I don't want to hear about it," you get pretty good at not sharing anything. To this day it's still a struggle at times to know what is okay to share, and what I should keep to myself. 

Last night I couldn't sleep. Instead I wrote out a hefty email to someone close to me, detailing certain aspects of our friendship that were of potential concern to me. I rambled on about why I was feeling that way, the background to how my train of thought worked, and about 3/4 of the way through, I stopped. I stopped and re-read what I had written. I quickly realized that I hadn't really written it for them, I had written it for me. I realized that the majority of the email was me explaining and defending why I felt the way I did. It was entirely unnecessary. I trust this person completely. I also appreciate that they are very patient and understanding of me navigating a new way of approaching, well, everything. So I scrapped the email. 

This may seem silly to others, but this is a moment of growth for me. Where I could have taken my previous path of insecurity and defensiveness of said insecurity, I made the decision to break away from that trend and moved in a different direction. As soon as I gave myself permission to let go of the fear of saying the wrong thing, I was free. I no longer felt I needed to really say much of anything. And not because of a fear that "they don't want to hear about it," but because I had worked out what was really bugging me under the surface on my own! 

I'm feeling pretty good about it! :)