Before sharing this post, I waited until I could talk to my mom, Joanne. We both did a writing exercise with the same prompts, and I loved the experience. It sparked something meaningful between us, and now I feel ready to share my reflection:
What keeps me up at night..
Is you. I think of you, your life. I imagine you sitting on your bed, looking out the window, working on your craft. I wonder about you—not just how you are, but closer to worry. I worry that you’re not improving, that you’re still stuck, that the hurts from your past remain too consuming.
What keeps me up is the vastness of what I don’t know and may never know. In that empty expanse, I fill the void with perhaps and maybes. Maybe you’re doing well, pushing a youngster on a swing, or enjoying hot fudge sundaes with your new wife. Maybe you’re on the cusp of something incredible, feeling that buzzing energy of expectancy for what’s next.
But I rarely believe that’s the case. What keeps me up is the fear that your treadmill’s incline is at full extension—and always will be.
What sets me free…
Is the gong’s sound. Its lingering ring hangs like a buoyant bubble, defying gravity with its long, shimmering presence. What sets me free is the undoing of what has been done: tending to knots, pushing one tangled end back into the other, and seeing it all as one continuous thread.
There’s a sense of accomplishment at the finish line. I sit with my head hanging between my knees, breath sharp and uncatchable, my body trembling from the effort but finally still.
In that stillness, there’s peace—a calmness like a pebble’s ripples slowing on a pond until there’s nothing but still water. And in that moment, everything matters and doesn’t matter all at once: the sway of the trees, their immovable branches stretching wide into the unchanging sky.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 