What Do You Want?

This question came from the voice of The Advocate recently. As is with most of our conversations, they are simple in presentation, but deeply complex and long lasting in their unfolding.

This open ended query can get me started by wondering, do you mean what do I want for lunch? Or what do I want to do this weekend? What do I want to be when I grow up? But as is with most questions from The Advocate, they invite me into the rabbit hole of inquiry and discovery.

I am five years into my mulligan. Also known as my do-over, my own personal renaissance. My wife passed away five years ago next month and this has led me to an apocalypse that I never envisioned.

The word apocalypse is somewhat misinterpreted.  Its most common inference is of a coming doomsday scenario. But it literally means to take the lid off. It refers to a revealing, a removal of a veil, if you will.  I’m assuming that the end of the world will most certainly be a dismantling of the shroud of uncertainty, but an apocalypse doesn’t have to wait until then. The lid eventually needs to come off.

And I didn’t know that was something I wanted.

My most recent unveiling began five years ago and it has uncovered the eyes of my heart to see something brand new. I had a difficult marriage, but I didn’t fully know it while I was caught in the middle of it, dealing with cancer and all the chaos and anger that came with it.  Once the lid was taken off, it revealed a world of unattended trauma that needed to be addressed.

In its subsequent years, I began a new restaurant concept that has just completed its 5th season. I’m rediscovering love, if not for the first time. I am releasing my third book. I’m traveling, seeing my big and beautiful world. I’m writing music again.

None of these were in the original game plan.  None could be experienced with that lid still in place.

So what do I want?

I would say I’m not fully sure, but I’m getting better at answering the question.

Desire is latent.  And crisis can kill it or make it prime for awakening.  The longer I go without seeing a desire fulfilled, the more weary my heart can become.  This disappointment is depressing.

A depression is a low place caused by steady, downward pressure.  Descending movement is made easier when there is little foundation to support it.  When the heart is subject to sinking pressure long enough, it eventually gives way. It succumbs to that force and the concavity becomes normal. That crater is now a part of the daily landscape of my survival. Most days I feel unable to crawl out of it, so I set up shop and live in the hole.

Here’s what I’ve learned about an apocalypse.  It can be a welcome event but I don’t get to control it.  My arms aren’t strong enough to lift that lid.

But I do have an Advocate that can, and I can find rest and comfort in that experience.

The best is yet to come.