Sarah Morgan
Recently, Shonda Rimes told the The Hollywood Reporter, “I have no idea how the current political climate will impact what kinds of stories are being told. I say that because I feel like up until [the election] I had a completely different idea about who America is or was. And now I very much embrace the concept that I don’t know who America is. That can be okay, but it also makes it hard to tell stories while I’m trying to figure it out.”
Woof. Yeah. Yeah.
I hoped so hard last autumn. In a lot of ways.
I was hoping I would get better physically with the diagnosis I had. I was hoping for good evolutions with my career. I was hoping that the country was about to thrill me. I was putting a lot of work against all of that hope, too. A lot of work.
Well. I found out I’d been misdiagnosed and had a total hip replacement. I was without clients for the first time in my professional life. And our country got what it got.
It’s felt like a sledgehammer to my health, my career, and my country. Not only did I not recognize America, I didn’t recognize my work or even myself.
So moving through this year has often felt – both literally and metaphorically – like a wobbly, unsure shuffle. Barely staying on my feet. Not a pleasant, or graceful, or efficient, or easy, way to move. Humbling.
But still, I’ve been putting in the work. And so the movement is getting better.
I still don’t know who America was, is, or will be. My business forecast isn’t crystal clear. I am, at least, thrilled that my physical recovery has been steady and excellent.
Perhaps part of the pain of this year has been in forgetting something meditation has taught me. Impermanence. Or, put differently: You never know. You can be disappointed by events, but to be also pained by their unexpectedness is, in a way, silly. Because of course anything can happen. At any moment. And often does.
That insight doesn’t make everything okay. I don’t like it. I’m not striding through my days strong and easy. But I’m also not shuffling terrified anymore. Neither literally nor metaphorically.
Whatever country I live in, whatever my career looks like, whatever I’m physically capable of, I am, at least, more recognizably myself again. And that sure isn’t everything. But it’s something.
