Private Party

BY JOY DIGGS

“I’m having a private party, learning how to love me, celebrating the woman I’ve become, yeah.” — India Arie

About a month ago, I woke up on my 39th birthday in beautiful Cancun, Mexico. After being shut in for almost a year because of COVID, it felt amazing to be anywhere other than my apartment. I ran to my hotel window and yanked the curtains open, staring down into the ocean as the sun bounced off the waves.

I was so thankful for this moment, and for all of the things I’d learned, especially during the last year. Standing there, my mind reflected on the biggest lesson of all.

Before the pandemic, I was always doing the most. If I wasn’t actively doing something, I felt like I was being lazy.

You see, growing up, I was a goal-getter, always in pursuit of the next thing. I never really celebrated a current accomplishment because I was too focused on what came next. Always striving. Never just being. In fact, I felt guilty if I wasn’t doing something productive, even during my downtime.

I had rarely allowed myself to sit around and do nothing for hours, days at a time. So, during quarantine when I lounged on the couch watching countless Netflix shows, I wondered if I was becoming a bum. As a business owner, I was used to working 14-hour days, but working from home freed up so much of my time. Was I really allowed to just relax? What was the catch? It was a blessing that I was working less, somehow making more, and even had extra time to spare. Could this be life? Could I even allow myself that downtime of freedom without filling it with something else to DO?

Finally, I had to stop and ask myself, why do I find so much more value in doing versus being? And, after reflection, I realized it’s because I feel validated by the things I do.

As young children, we don’t have any requirements put on to us. As long as we eat our veggies and go to bed when told, there is nothing else we really have to do. We don’t yet have big dreams to conquer or self-imposed expectations to meet. Just being is enough.

When we start school, just being gets buried underneath

all of our other obligations. Tests, report cards, presentations, sports games, chores, homework, church, church, and more church. In school, I felt like I was always doing something. But since the doing something was always leading to something else, it felt worth it.

But what happens when you’re now grown and you feel like you can’t just be? When the pandemic began, I couldn’t even sit in my own apartment (where I pay the bills) and binge-watch the Netflix account (that I pay for and had previously rarely used) without feeling guilty. My therapist had to literally convince me that I was not going to turn into a sloth. She said I wasn’t even built that way, but, at first, I didn’t believe her.

Now, after much self-talk and a little therapy, I finally understand the blessing of being. It took a year to get here, and what a year it was. Actually, it took 39 years, but who’s counting!

Just being means waking up and basking in the essence of me. It means connecting to how I feel in the moment. It means not looking at life as one long to-do list. It means going on a 5-day birthday trip where all that’s expected is to wake up every morning thankful to be alive. That’s it. That’s the list. I also realize self-care isn’t just booking a massage; nor is self-love just appreciating my smiling face in the mirror. It’s recognizing that everything in my BEING is enough, without anything else added. It’s understanding that I don’t have to accomplish anything else to feel validated.

Most importantly, it’s looking out the window at God’s beautiful Earth on my birthday and recognizing that I’m an extension of that beauty, just as I am.

Private

Party