Settling. And a Letter. Kinda.

Read this.

It’s long. I’ll wait.

Are you back? Great. Nice to see you. Are you furious? Or are you in total agreement? Now, how old are you? Are you married? Are you single? Are you dating? Are you male or female? Are all of your friends married? Are you worried that you’ll never find “the one?”

This article is so confusing.

Sorry, but it’s true. I’m all about a healthy compromise, but when it comes to the rest of my LIFE, I want greatness. And I’m not settling. And my idea of greatness changes EVERY SINGLE DAY, so there’s that.

I’m not going to settle for anything less than everything*. And like I said, everything changes on a daily basis. When I first moved to Chicago, “everything” was a loft apartment downtown, a killer career, and probably a dog because I “didn’t have time” for anything else. Let’s be serious – I don’t have time for a dog and now – today – “everything” has shifted its definition. Again. As it always does.

What is “everything” today? Everything is the career yes, but a solid group of friends that I can call on for anything. Everything is having someone that I can call, be it a best friend, a boyfriend, a husband (someday), WHATEVER, who is my “person”. Someone who will be there through the thick and thin, someone who I don’t ever hesitate to pick up the phone to contact in the event of an emergency, thrilling news, or just when I need someone to calm me down.

That’s what I want. And I don’t really care what form it comes in. And I have it now. And titles don’t matter right now. Call it what you will. But I have my “person” and that makes me happy. I feel like I’m in elementary school when I think about what it would be defined as.

Technically, if you’ve ever seen Sex in the City, you know that Carrie needs her “person” and her “person” is a woman. Which is fine. And I have a “person” in that capacity. I also have my “person” who could potentially be the greatest thing to ever walk into my life. We’ll see how that develops, but for now, I’m totally loving where its going, and for the first time, no rushing. I’m not freaking out wondering why there aren’t definitions yet, because we don’t need definitions. We’re redefining things every day.

According to the article linked above, me saying all this, me holding out, my demanding “greatness” instead of settling, is because I’m young and naive and nobody actually has a “person” – we all just have to settle.

Sorry, but no.

Which this all kinda ties into the whole poem thing that Doniree and Katie wrote about today. It’s called the invitation. And I think you can read it differently depending on what is going on in your life. My take? Today? It’s a letter to my “person”. So there.

Some good food for thought, to make up for the garbage I made you read at the beginning of this post:

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

The Invitation

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer from the book The Invitation

(Earlier this week, Alex posted a beautiful story about her grandmother, and included a poem from a book called The Invitation. I found it because I was seeking out a topic to write about yesterday and Doniree was like “OOH OOOH THIS THIS THIS” and then we decided to manhandle the poem a little bit. Except I don’t really want to manhandle it. Because, really, it’s fabulous.)

So, are you settling? Did you settle? Is there anything wrong with settling? What is the difference between settling and compromising?

And what the hell is up with labels anyway?

*AUTHOR’S NOTE: Mad props to Sugar Land for that line of Settlin’.