Loving myself where there’s nothing to love

Tonight I walked the streets of Sunnyside in Queens next to my wife and felt a strange thing: nothing.

Or to be more precise, the gnawing feeling of existing with no more places left to hide.

You see I have placed myself in a situation where I have nothing left. It has taken me years to get here. No possessions. No money. No social status left to speak of. No “thing” to attach myself to or distract myself with.

It tuned me into how much of modern living is a constant barrage of distractions from this feeling, from this place of just being.

And it felt so “not good enough" — that feeling — a place that’s reenforced in us on a daily basis with clever ads designed by people who’s mission is to create that gnawing feeling.

There was me, the wind, and nothing to cover myself with.

I could feel the wretch in my stomach. I looked into the eyes of my beloved. She too was experiencing a similar feeling.

I kept breathing and asking myself what it’s all for, seeing what sense there was to be made of this.

And then I did the thing. I loved myself there.

In that bare place of not being good enough, of not having anything, of not having anything figured out, of knowing that the last few years have been a barrage of failed attempts at becoming something.

I felt like some benevolent being gave me wings on that street corner. I breated into what felt like new spaces within me.

And I got excited about what this all means. If I could love myself here, then I could love myself all throughout. I could love myself for trying and failing. I could love myself for every aspect of my being. To quote Duncan Trussell' favorite line:

When is the answer ever NOT love?

A large part of this still doesn’t make sense for me. In finding myself in unexplored territory. I hope by writing some of these things down I can find some clarity through the fog of the past few years — this Dark Night of the Soul I’ve been going through — or deep “depression” as it’s probably better known as in the modern world. But I hate to call it that, knowing — or wanting to believe — that it’s part of the spiritual path I’ve undertaken. And that it’s a much bigger and deeper process of transformation than I’m even aware of.

Trusting and surrendering to what is.

And loving myself in places where it’s the darkest.