The first thought that came to mind after reading an email from a long time and heart away saying ‘take it one step at a time’ was: why was I waiting to be told that? Why don’t those thoughts come from me first?
Something is very, simply yet powerfully, grounding about that I want to learn from.
Something of love, true and simple, no complications.
But then having learnt, I would say: it is okay.
It’s okay to be complicated.
It’s okay to react.
It’s okay not to know what to do.
It’s okay to know.
It’s okay to feel things, weird or beautiful.
It’s okay to do things, right or wrong, then learn.
It’s okay to change my mind.
It’s okay to stay.
It’s okay to leave.
It’s okay to go back.
It’s okay to dream.
It is all okay…
because it is all part of life. And life is okay.
Like every child, I cried, and it pained those who loved me. And so I promised them that I wouldn’t. A promise I could not keep. I realised growing up that
It is okay to cry. It’s the rising after the fall that matters.
It’s okay to realise something after not realising it for a long time.
It’s okay to learn.
It’s okay not to know, and wallow in the wrong knowledge, then know.
It’s okay to grow.
It’s okay to shrink back.
It’s okay to feel the darkness.
It’s okay to be rigid and stuck, and then realise there are no rules.
It’s okay to break free.
It’s okay to see all those perspectives, to be swayed by them, to be dragged towards them, to be pulled and stretched in all directions.
It’s okay to then pull back and fly above them all, to see they’re all points on a big wide map of existence, of a colourful picture.
It’s okay to realise that my perspective is there too, legitimately taking its place, its own colour, its own point, shimmering on the very same map.
It’s okay to recognise it, love it or hate it, study it, adopt it, reject it, shape it, grow it, merge it with another.
It’s okay to create a new me — one step at a time, or a giant leap of faith, either way or both: it is okay.
My physical limitations sometimes remind me of what I am not. But then they fade in the background when a thought touches my soul and it joyfully ripples beyond this mortal boundary.
It’s okay not to hear.
It’s okay not to see.
It’s okay not to feel.
It’s okay to have a headache, a migraine.
It’s okay to feel pain.
It’s okay to stop.
It’s okay to continue.
It’s okay to turn around, clueless, again and again.
It’s okay to smile.
It’s okay to frown.
It’s okay to think it’s okay.
It’s okay to ask permission to think it’s okay.
It’s okay to give permission to believe it’s okay.
It’s okay to question, to doubt, and then make up my own mind.
It’s okay to let others be themselves.
It’s okay to take and give space.
It’s okay to walk my path in broad daylight, or hide.
It’s okay to show up, or not.
It’s okay to feel guilty, and to understand that guilt.
It’s okay to be afraid, and to understand that fear. And then move past it, around it, through it. It’s all okay.
It’s okay to be, feel, think, do anything that makes me me — no obligation, no expectation.
It’s okay to put a full stop. And ponder a while what else can be okay — to feel a heartbeat getting deeper, fuller, with the thoughts, and then relax knowing that
It. All. Can. Only. Be. Okay.
