Life is a never-ending onion
Embracing each new layer as it comes
A few weeks back, some friends came to Lacombe to visit our family. We’ve known each other since we were all new to Vancouver in 2015 and have been through some big life stuff together. So while our husbands took Declan to swimming lessons, me and Sage stayed back with the wife and chatted. It didn’t take long for the conversation to head towards our latest epiphanies and the struggles we’ve been facing. We talked about peeling back these new layers of the onion — layers of healing, grief, transition, and childhood wounds — and laughed as we lamented the fact that just when we thought we’d made it to the centre, we found another one. Couldn’t we just be done peeling the damn onion already? It’s exhausting, confusing, heartbreaking, and seemingly constant. And when would we get to the middle where the good stuff lives? Peace, contentment, maybe even divine wisdom. Because, surely, that must be where all this hard work is leading us.
But y’all, maybe there is no centre…
My enneagram one brain that seeks perfection finds this thought utterly devastating. Jason and I won’t find complete marital bliss; I’ll lose patience with my children more often than I’d like to admit (hell, they’ll even be impatient with me occasionally); my jobs and roles in life won’t always feel fulfilling; relationships with friends and family will go through conflict and disconnection. Am I even becoming a ‘better person’ if I still struggle in areas I thought I had overcome? What the hell is the point of growing and changing and working through the hard stuff if I will never be perfect??
What’s the point?
I’m not going to lie, this thought has left me feeling quite hopeless on many occasions in the past few years. I even joined Black Eyed Stories’ year-long search for hope here on Substack to find some clarity in this darkness. Of course, there’s been other factors contributing to this feeling of despair, but I’ve pushed so hard for perfection, to get to the top of the mountain where I can just coast, that it makes me question what the real purpose of my life is if those things are actually unattainable. What am I working so hard to achieve? Will it always feel so difficult?
The interesting thing about hope is that it actually cannot exist without despair. And, as I’ve learned both from Marcie Alvis Walker and Sarah Bessey, real hope isn’t fluffy and sparkly and clean; real hope is gritty and raw and has seen some stuff. It’s a truth that allows me to feel despair, hurt, confusion, disconnection, and discontent, but not ruminate there — at least, not for too long. It’s a truth that has gently coaxed me to stop pushing for perfection and control and simply be in whatever stage I find myself. I can finally breathe, pause, and notice: the early sun coming in through my east-facing window, my children playing quietly for a moment, the plants I care for that bring me joy, a house that gathers mess and happy memories, the way I feel when I’m missing community, the knot in my heart thinking of how much suffering exists in the world, the pit in my stomach that knows conflict and anger.
All. Of. It.
I wonder if those who live out in secluded monasteries and nunneries (real word) find a sense of transcendence because they’ve set themselves apart from the rest of the world. As if the distance from the struggles of humanity brings them closer to God. Have they ‘made it?’ Will I be able to experience this enlightenment if I’m here in the trenches with my growing children, my friends whose arms long to hold baby of their own, my neighbours who experience hate and discrimination, my world that’s facing more and more natural disasters? I don’t know.
Maybe life is just layers; waves; cycles. A never-ending onion. Maybe there will never be a point where a person ‘makes it.’ And maybe we can’t bypass the hard things that come with each new layer. But maybe that’s exactly what grows our capacity to love, lead, listen, and learn.
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Do you resonate with my desire to find perfection, to do the work to find your ‘best self’?
Where are you feeling despair in this current cycle of your life?
What would happen if you embraced that feeling and allowed it space?
What would it tell you about what you most value?
What would raw, gritty hope look like in this moment?