All That Is Not Gold

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it

all that is not gold.

 --Leo Tolstoy

We make major leaps.  We transform our lives.  We feel, perhaps for the first time, centered and peaceful, right and true, completely ourselves, happy.  Maybe it's hubris, but I think it's more finding yourself on your path, where you should be, and you slip, at least I did, into thinking all of this is a destination, a point to achieve, an equation that leads to happy, something that can be known, repeated, proved they way they made us prove things in math all those years ago.  You open your mouth, expecting diamonds, and you get toads.  

Now you're smart.  You close your mouth, take a breath, center, fill yourself with peace and love.  You open your mouth, sure something perhaps not marvelous but at least enlightened will come forth.  And there they are, more toads and nasties.  I can remember in therapy asking my therapist if I had to deal with my father issues.  "Not until you're ready," she said with her sweet, motherly smile.  And then my dad died and I was thick in my father issues.  Apparently there's no hiding from the work of ourselves.

So here I am in Florida.  I've found my way back to water; I've found my way back to love.  I've learned to leap, to risk, to collaborate with life and live as opposed to letting life live me.  I'm beginning to understand my worth, not in pride, but just realize the gifts I bring and in the job area, how I have a right to have that honored and to be renumerated commensurate with that experience.  I'm understanding the difference between standing firm in my truth and fighting.  But I still can't talk to my mother and she still can't talk to me.  So much growth, but not here.  Here I am still a child, looking for the "good" mother instead of the "good enough"mother I have.  I keep looking for the big hug, for the comfort and consolation, for the unconditional love.  At some point, don't I have to let go, stopping looking for isn't, and come to peace with what is?  

We manage to get through the call, to end on a relatively happy note, but memory of the conversation tastes rusty in my mouth.  Is it time to deal with my mother issues?  That is the question.  And for the first time I'm not sure of anything, which perhaps is just where I need to be, at the wisdom place of Socrates, knowing that I know nothing.  

For many years I believed in the Platonic ideal, in The Truth.  Now, I think, I may be finally willing to let go and let life wash away everything, and leave the gold.  May it be so.