The jean jacket is missing.
Abandoned. Discarded. Left behind.
My fashionista soul senses its faded blue sadness and witnesses a vision of my loyal denim friend curled up in the corner of the public library closet.
In all my gathering of props and tidying up of yoga mats after the library class, I forget to mindfully collect my true jean boyfriend.
This is the second jacket left behind after yoga teaching, and the first – a black leather jacket with roses sewn onto the slick sleeves – has been lost to a lucky finder.
(I’m still grieving, and my closet feels a bit incomplete without a black leather jacket to provide cool edge to outfit pieces.)
I make a mental reorientation of plans to swoop back by to reunite and triumphantly bring home my snug amour, and I do trust that the jacket is out-of-sight from any stylish finders-keepers, and there’s a quip from the benevolent, wise, cooing confident adult speaking from the depths of the inside:
“Call about the jean jacket.”
Oh, no! I swat down the advice.
I don’t want to be a bother. I don’t want to take the library staff’s time with a call about a jacket. Geez, I may look dramatic, or over-the-top. I’m sure it’s in the closet. I hope it’s in the closet.
“You have permission to call about the jean jacket.”
This pop of a reaction over a jean jacket (because it’s never really about the jean jacket, is it?) struts to the surface my engrained tendencies to people-please, to fail to ask for what I need because though I think other people’s needs are valid, mine for some mystery reason, are not.
The fear of rejection, of judgment, of being perceived for being a person who cares about their clothing also appears, but here’s the truth: I do care about my clothes. I invest in clothes, I treasure and treat them (most of the time) with respect, and I see them as pieces of expressive art capable of showcasing personality, moods, a cultivation of a particular energy.
I call. I voice my request with confidence, without apology. The librarian is exceptionally friendly. The jacket is promptly found and waits for pick-up at the front desk.
The call about the jean jacket ushers in ease, and the relief signals a strengthening of a daily practice to choose the solution that grants full breaths, a gentle advocacy, a voicing – in the moment – of what I need.
And in my late-twenties I lean with affectionate confidence and blushing awkwardness into the discomfort of claiming and advocating for my needs.
I no longer need to wait for permission to speak.
This epiphany blooms from a radiantly articulate and wise friend who is my listener and empathetically relates to my hurt underneath the yearning and questioning of why in all my listening to friends and loved ones, I rarely receive the same tonic of honeyed attentiveness.
I cringe in reflection at all the hangouts and dates where I patiently wait to be asked a question, to contribute, to reveal my heart, but here’s the deal, I do not need to wait for permission to speak.
I free myself of expectations and free myself from the role of therapist.
Yes, I love listening, and stories fascinate me, and how people respond and perceive the world utterly intrigues me, and my listening is a love language, and not everyone shows and speaks love in the same way.
I stop waiting for the question about my day. I speak my truth with or without prompt, and the people who engage in conversation, who brightly listen, these people are my tribe, because I crave soulful conversation, and am worthy and deserving (as are you) of attention, presence, being listened to and seen.
When I attend to my needs, I expand in aliveness.
I need to be listened to with openness, compassion, devoted focus, because this is how I listen, and it’s time to receive.
And in my speaking, I do not need to rush. I do not to speed along my story, experience, insight to appease the listener. When I speak with intention, when I feel safe and seen in my speaking, then the words appear in clarity and enrich my own understanding, and hopefully, the listener’s understanding of me, our relationship, or their own perceptions and experiences.
I no longer need to thank someone for listening, too. This is basic decency, and if we long and ache for connection, then listening is an essential skill that must be practiced in order to have those meaningful relationships.
And in my speaking, I’ve heightened my awareness on how often I involuntarily and unnecessarily apologize and fall back onto employing self-deprecating humor in the playful, but detrimental approach to half-heartedly help people feel comfortable around me.
I lovingly declare this is not my problem. If I’m communicating from a foundation of love and truth, then I am not responsible for how those words land.
I stop abandoning myself. I stand tall in my uniqueness, my expansiveness, my joy.
The only person who needs to feel comfortable with me is me. In all my darkness, and in all my light. I expand into joyful embodiment and expressing my creatively charismatic self.
And in order to cultivate relationships reciprocal in listening and sharing, I need to continue to strengthen my own inner listening and respecting the language of wisdom communicated through the body.
I hold space within, I listen, I respond to the information arising through sensation, gut reaction, an intuitive reading of vibes, energy.
I practice pausing, breathing, feeling into an answer for a decision and the answer is either an ecstatic YES or a simple, loud NO. Maybes waste my energy and time, and is a no insecure of declaration. “I don’t know” is a legitimate request for additional information.
I take my time in my decisions so they are authentic and true and aligned to values.
When I commit to a yes, when I say out-loud I am going to do a task, a project, a meet-up, I follow up. I believe in integrity, in the impeccable keeping of my word. If I say it, I’ll do it, and this goes for my needs. If I make a commitment for my health, my creativity, then I follow through and this builds trust in myself, and in my own fierce caring for self.
This includes owning the fact, because my heart whistles that this is true, I love that jean jacket. I’m pleasantly thrilled that we’re having a coffee shop afternoon. My denim dear hangs chic and cool across the chair just in case I get cold from drinking a Topo Chico in a city that can blaze hot and then blast the AC.
Thankful for the jean bae to be my adornment of choice to stay warm in AC breezy coffee shops and remind me to speak up, speak louder, and clearer on claiming stylish needs and taking my time when I do because I am worthy of being listened to, and so are you.