Surrender

I’ve been meaning to write in this weekly, as I have so much to say but not enough bandwidth to say it. My goal this year is to make this a regular occurrence and find time for myself.

I’ve made it very apparent since starting this blog that I’m an open book. I have no problems being vulnerable and speaking my thoughts, and I want to be able to do this on a larger scale one day. Years ago, when I was processing my ex leaving me, I wrote a post about the truest, most beautiful life I can ever imagine. It’s a question I actually ask people when I get to know them, so I can see if we are aligned OR if they are someone with a vision.

The most beautiful life I can imagine is being a wife and a mom… I want a partner in crime. I want someone to impart my wisdom to. Being a step-mom to my exes son was, and still is, one of the most amazing experiences of my life. But I want that for myself now… and in order for me to do that, I have to let things go.

I made a big joke about the Penguin walking off into the Antarctic… The internet was an absolute frenzy about the existential crisis it evoked in us all, and as I typically do when I find something funny about life, I yacked on about it as one continuous joke. That’s my style of humor, in case people just don’t understand… I take mole hills and I intentionally make them mountains for the sake of a chuckle or two. I take things that emotionally stir something inside me and turn them light-hearted… the absurdity of life type of humor.

The video of this penguin was captured in a 2007 documentary Encounters at the End of the World, where this Adelies penguin walks away from the colony (and food sources) towards the Antarctic interior, which would spell certain death for him. The video resurfaced on social media, spooling several memes and nihilistic viewpoints in the comments sections. It’s a short clip, just two penguins next to each other as dramatic music plays. Werner Herzog narrates the scene, and explains that the penguin is walking to certain death. The scene is dramatic… the vastness of the arctic tundra juxtaposed to an image of this tiny penguin walking towards the mountains while giving one last look back to the colony is monumental. It ends with Herzog stating that even if the researchers dragged the penguin back to the colony, it would still walk away… “But why?”

To me, it was the penguin giving that one last look back then turning to continue its journey that sent me into an emotional tailspin. He looked happy… free… blissfully unaware of his certain death. Or maybe it did know, how the hell should I know? It’s a penguin. Also, this video was done in 2007 so that penguin is MOST DEFINITELY DEAD now.

“Did he die?” Bro… little homie LIVED.

But joking aside, that Penguin fucked me up inside a bit. It made me feel a lot of things all at once, things that I had stuffed down. Sorrow because I haven’t spent time with my loved ones, sadness over chapters ending/unspoken goodbye’s, elation at the thought of an adventure, and depression over the thought of this damn penguin starving to death in the frozen tundra. Worry that the last time I see someone may actually be the last… and a fear that I leave so many things unspoken.

Truth be told, behind my goofy posts and silly rants is a rage that has been boiling inside me. A shameful rage that I kept trying to stuff down inside my chest, a problem I can “deal with later” since I didn’t have the time now. But the problem is, if you don’t make time for it, these problems don’t get solved. They fester inside like an infection until it becomes a systemic problem… like sepsis of your soul. Everything would start triggering this rage… a text about work on a Sunday… someone asking for help on the same problem I already talked to them about… the dog whining at the cat… the man mowing the lawn in the winter… someone I found annoying talking on a conference call…

I KNEW this was a bomb waiting to go off. I KNEW that I couldn’t contain it inside me. I KNEW that I needed to do something about it, but the reality check came when I smacked my knuckles working on my truck and I about sent my fist through the garage wall (which the garage wall would have won).

It was time to surrender. To sit with the feelings I had… open them up like a box of momentos and face the things I was running from.

Disappointment in people I trusted, loved, cared for…

Hurt from people’s words that don’t match their actions… or the silence they leave behind.

Control of things I didn’t even wish to control anymore…

People’s perceptions of me…

Resentment towards an organization that was slowly sucking the life out of me…

And with that, I had to face uncomfortable truths about myself: I had let these things happen to me. I go back to my old mantra from 2021: “It’s not my fault what happened to me, but I am saddled with the responsibility.” That the rage I feel is because I LET these external things anger me. Simply put, I had too many fucks, and I misappropriated them.

Surrendering isn’t giving up and letting people win. There is no winning. Surrendering is choosing what I give my mental energy to… and I no longer choose to give it to people or things that get in the way of the trusest, most beautiful life I want to live.

Like that chubby little penguin, I turned away from the colony and walked into the unknown. Will I get the family and wife and adventure that I dream of? I don’t know, but what I DO know is that I won’t get those things if I return to the colony. If I continue to pour into cups that are bottomless with thirst. If I keep sacrificing myself. If I keep living for my resume and not my obituary.

My time is so precious to me. It’s the one thing we never get back, and I’ve wasted so much of it the past two years, intoxicated by chasing ambition and “world building” of a career that has cost me EVERYTHING. AT 38, I absolutely REFUSE to sacrifice my work-life balance ever again… not for my resume. I was born to build my dreams, not others.

All that to say that I am stepping away from things and buying another RV again. Let’s see where this year takes me… what adventures I can experience.

As I’ve talked about before, the two things that are certain about the human condition are conflict and control: we are always trying to control every single thing at every single moment in our lives. The way we look, how others perceive us, if someone loves us or leaves us or hates us. Control the organization… control how other people live their lives… But why? Hell, I’m trying to control you right now by preaching to you in this blog, technically.

Why waste our time controlling things? Death gripping onto stuff that doesn’t really matter?

Why not just surrender?

There are so many things that come from that video, and that’s why I think it resonates so much with people. It’s the quiet distance from the things that no longer serve us. The dare to dream big and risk it all. Grief/anguish that looks serene on the outside, but is an allegory for the vast and unforgiving tundra before us. The tiny hero who dared to tackle the impossible. Etc… etc…. etc. I think the clip can mean different things to the same person, depending on where they are in the journey of their lives when they watch it. And I LOVE media that does that… the ambiguity of something that lets our imaginations run wild.

For me, it speaks of surrender, though.

Five years ago, I would have found it to be an allegory of surrendering to despair when I was contemplating ending my life. The vast landscape would have represented the insurmountable sorrow I felt, something I couldn’t conquer, so I quietly embraced it as it consumed my life… the penguin just accepting its fate. But obviously, I didn’t accept mine and I’m here today.

But for me, in this present season of my life, it’s a call to surrender. Not to the grief that has consumed me for the better part of a year, but to the things that no longer serve me so I can make space for this big, beautiful world of possibilities. Surrendering to hope this time, instead of anguish.