You Are Not Here to Have a Quiet Life
“You are not here to have a quiet life,” she said in our reading. “Your role is to bring a new kind of vision into the world.”
“Oooof,” I exhaled. “I needed to hear that.”
The words landed as a much-needed balm for my disoriented soul.
“You are not here to have a quiet life.”
I knew this, of course. And I’d been at war with this truth my entire existence. There was always a bigness inside that wanted to come forward. Yet, I’d continually stifled it, namely for the sake of relationships. To keep the peace, fit myself into the openings they’d picked out for me, or to stay safe. To be chosen, to be just right and not “too much,” or because I didn’t think I deserved or was worthy of more.
“You are not here to have a quiet life.”
Something about these words both energized and exhausted me. The exhaustion had become a normal response to the idea of going for more—showing up fully expressed, living the life I desired, creating a partnership, and having the impact I wanted at the scale that felt fitting. It always made my heart swell, followed by that sense of deep fatigue in my bones. It was the trauma, to be sure. After everything I’d been through, having a loud, bright life felt scary and exhausting.
“You are not here to have a quiet life.”
I thought of him, the one I believed I would marry. The one I thought I would love “even when we’re ghosts,” as we always said. His small, quiet life—said with a deep appreciation for how sweet and meaningful it was. But for me? It was too small. Too confining and fixed. Too slow and simple, words that are easy to misinterpret and assign negatively. But words are energized by the context and meaning behind them, and I say them with so much love. Slow and simple, lovely and small. A beautiful life of contribution and family and a love for the place you live. The quiet, cyclical nature of seasons and the activities that define them. A sweet and gentle life that was never for me, but that I tried so hard to make a home inside of.
“You are not here to have a quiet life.”
No, I wasn’t.
And it was time to embrace and embody the truth of what that meant more fully.
(Excerpt from my next book… the words are flowin’!)
