The More We Carry

Am I Having (Another) Existential Crisis?

Sometimes I think about how much simpler life would be if I could just… settle.

If I could curb my ambition. If I could be less passionate. If I could shut down my heart and silence my curiosity and grow content with everything already as it is.

But then, I know, I would also cease to be.

I wouldn’t be me.

I think this is the crux and crush of a soul that knows it’s always been made for more. I’ve felt it since I was a young child, when I would tell my mom as early as five that I don’t belong here, and she would respond, puzzled by my meaning, “Well, where do you belong?”

I didn’t know then. I barely know now.

I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure that out, but at last I have some semblance of an answer: I belong here, now. But also to another here and now. A better here and now. A here and now that offers so much more than what is.

Yep. Cue existential crisis number 400 and counting.

I need you to understand my meaning. Maybe that’s what this seeking is—to finally be heard, to be understood. When I say that I’m made for more, I’m not talking about tangible success—more money, or more things, or more connections or any of that.

That’s never mattered to me, except more money would enable me to bring my visions to life more effortlessly, and I enjoy surrounding myself with books and art and sentimental mementos from people I love and experiences I’ve had for the memories they contain, and I love meeting new people and forging intimate, emotional connections because that’s also what life is.

But, no. When I say I’m ambitious and made for more, I mean that my soul longs to experience the fullness that this world, this life has to offer. I want to add to it—like a tincture to ease someone’s health, I want to pour drops of love into the world and make it better.

My ex once told me that I looked sad, and I couldn’t understand then what he was talking about because when he said it, I was unexpectedly happy. But I think I do carry a kind of grief with me, and it’s always been there—underneath the peace that I’ve fought so hard for, past the pain I crawled out of, and beyond the joy I found living, too, inside of me.

It’s a grief for all I’ve loved, for all I want to love, and for all I’ll never have the chance to love.

Maybe it’s what that little five-year-old version of me knew so long ago, when I was philosophizing about my place in the world: as much as you love, as much as you experience, it will only ever be a taste—a fraction of what’s possible.

Maybe that’s the limitations of being human.

Maybe that’s the beauty, too—the fact that it seems so rare in this world, and so to love is an act of courage, itself. It’s sacred defiance.

I love and I love and I love and I love, and maybe it will never feel like enough.

But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t love at all.

I expand, and my heart expands, and my capacity for love keeps growing. But so, too, does the chasm of grief, knowing there’s still so much more life to live, knowing there’s still so much more love that’s possible—to give and to receive, to fill and be filled.

Why should I settle? How could I settle? When there is this inside of me that longs to climb to the highest peak of the tallest metaphorical mountain and shout at the world, “I love you. I love you. I love you!”

And the silent plea beneath those words, “Please, love yourself enough.”

Love the rivers that bring us fresh water, and the soil that grows our food, and the land itself upon which we walk, side-by-side with animals and neighbors, that offers more beauty and wonder than can ever be mass-created with our innovations and technology.

Love our innovations, too—innovation comes from our creativity, from our desire to better ourselves and the world we live in—but with reverence to all that came before and a mindfulness of what will come after. Love the human propensity to create beauty in this world—art and dance and music and books, all stemming from a desire to express ourselves. Love the uniqueness of each other.

Just… love each other.

Love each other just enough that we can make this place, this home to us all, a little bit better than it was before.

This is what I want. No—it’s what I crave, it’s what I long for.

At the end of the day, all of my work—my tarot readings and channelings and spiritual conversations, my novels and poetry and essays, my activism and advocacy and awareness, and whatever else I do and create and become—is this.

At the end of my life, all of my inner healing—so family dynamics deepen, so my friendships expand, so my relationships grow stronger, so my interactions with strangers soften while my place in the world becomes bolder and more certain—is for this.

For the ripple of love to spread.

This is my ambition. It’s why I keep searching, keep exploring, keep discovering. This is why I keep changing and growing, and my external life keeps evolving, too.

I can’t be just one thing when I’m made up of everything.

I’m unsatiated, as much as I feel fulfilled. I’m unpacified, as much as I feel content and at peace. I’m unsettled, as much as I feel grateful and blessed for my present life.

Do you know this feeling, too? So that I’m not alone in this? Do you understand what I’m saying, do you feel the heartbeat in these words?

Even if you don’t, it’s enough that you read them.

It’s enough to be seen, to be heard, to know I’ve tried to put down into words—in the hundreds of writings here—everything I am, everything I want to say to the world.

And, still, there will always be more.

Want more words?

Read my books!

Available at www.montourscity.com and www.susandawnspiritual.com