My knee still hurt yesterday. I noticed it while I was taping a hoop and listening to hoop music and watching a hoop video. In that minute, surrounded by three different hoop activities, I thought 'what would my life be like if I could no longer hoop?' In this case, if my knee no longer allowed me to hoop. But, as I was thinking, I realized, I can't even picture my life without the hoop anymore - and probably don't need to.
Now, this is weird to me, and for good reason. Throughout my life I have consciously made an effort to not have anything in my life without which I could not live. Every few months, I would look around my house and think - these things - these are things without which I can easily live. I don't need that bed. I don't need that rug. This house could burn down and it would be okay.
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| Thanks for the memo, Fight Club. |
In my head that made perfect sense, but I guess it might sound a little weird and "Fight Club-esque" right now. But it is true. As condescending as it can sound to not be into "things," this is not my intention. I think that people finding value in things - collecting and filling their houses with objects that represent extensions of themselves - can be a wonderful thing. Some folks are down right 'good' at 'things.' They know what looks good, how to tie a room together, and how to carefully choose each object in the house. It looks beautiful and it represents who they are. A well chosen and decorated home can be a work of art and self expression. I just chose, for a very long time, not to see it that way.
Growing up I didn't have very many things so I never really got a chance to be attached. When I moved to Virginia at 21, I owned a suitcase full of clothes. That's it. Of course, this was a protective mechanism. Calming to someone like me - who thought they could lose any and everything in a moment's notice. I even tried to hold this mentality with more than just 'things' - it was the same with interests, hobbies, everything. Never have anything from which you cannot walk away. I'd be obsessed. Then over it. I call this the F*ck Fish mentality:
But now, with hooping, I have something from which I absolutely know I cannot walk away. Maybe it's two sides of the same coin - both extremes. Either I wouldn't care about something if it burned up in a fire, or I can't live without it? That doesn't sound like balance to me.
This question - what would life be like beyond the hoop - has actually made me question what my life is now, how I attribute value to things, and the importance of value in the (seemingly) mundane. It has made me notice the protective nature of my interactions. I can now see all the walls that must stay in place to continuously 'not care' about anything.
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| Oh, there is a wall here. |
I am excited now. I am glad that my (stupid) knee was hurting and made me - well, have an existential crisis. These walls have lived with me for as long as I can remember and I haven't a clue what awaits beyond. Maybe I will get hurt. Maybe I will buy a house full of things I love and they will all burn down - at which point, I hope that I still have the perspective to know that they were just objects and not 'me.' But, I finally feel ready to spread beyond myself.
The hoop has shown me the amazing joy you can achieve when you allow yourself to fully enjoy something - without thinking about losing it. I am glad that I didn't answer"what would I do without the hoop." It was time to flip it around. Time to understand that I can't only look at things in terms of potential for pain if lost. I am excited to exhale. Excited to represent myself in my life, unabashedly.
I am glad the hoop is such a good teacher and I am excited to see what I can learn from next.
1 comment:
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. In my city, there was an apartment, well, condo building that was not built correctly, and I guess one day they started seeing structural damage, woke up all the residents at 11pm, told them to get out right then and there, and they had no time to take anything with them. They scattered to hotels and friends houses if they could.
A week later each family was allotted 15 minutes to go inside and grab what they needed. 15 minutes. That's it. Pictures, artifacts, memories, files, clothing, birth certificates... 15 minutes to take what they needed. They have not been allowed back in since, and it has been about a month. They are still stuck paying the mortgages on these condos as it's literally falling to the ground, plus whatever hotel and apartment they have managed to get into in the meantime.
I just look around at my house and am so thankful for everything I own. I have always been horrible with "stuff". I have boxes of childhood toys in my shed that I can't stand to part with. I even moved them across country with me. Ugh. But for me, the objects bring back the memories, memories I find hard to remember on their own, and I don't want to lose them. I look at everything I own, and I'm like, what if I had 15 minutes to take whatever I could carry and had to leave all this behind? I'd be a wreck. I couldn't do it. My personality is everywhere, in all this stuff. I'm way too attached, but I don't know how to separate and let go.. and I'm not even sure I want to! haha.
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