Dirty Mindfulness:

Not long ago, I decided to move cities and countries. It wasn’t an easy decision to arrive at, but once made, felt like the only choice. I’ve been living in the same city for 22 years, a place where I made a career for myself, and in many ways, finally became an adult. I’ll be leaving behind many friends, a writers’ workshop I built, a language (it’s unlikely I’ll encounter Hungarian again except from passing tourists). But more than all that, in my time here I acquired an identity through the things I had done and through modest but definite accomplishments in the local literary community.

Identity is tricky to discuss, because it’s both inherent and artificial. It comes from internal qualities as well as qualities projected upon us that we accept as our individuality and self. A melding of characteristics that we accept as who we are.

But becoming attached to an identity is a path to suffering, because when it is challenged, or when that identity crumbles in the public eye, as anybody who has left a career or family knows, it can shake one’s self-worth. But pretty much anything can be taken from you in this life, any construct can be deconstructed or destroyed. Having built, or invested in an identity theoretically should make it hard to abandon. But there’s also a certain thrill in seeing its destruction, in burning an effigy to the past.

So I have to ask myself: what will get left behind and what will get taken along? Where I am going, I know nobody, nobody knows me. I have no reputation or foundation. Will I try to seek validation through what I left behind? Try to recreate that identity, or feel lucky to be unburdened of it?  When you give up something you identify with, does it create a loss that is to be mourned or a space to grow into? I suppose I’ll know more upon arrival in Mexico come September.

I’ve long had a saying for myself when leaving a job, breaking up with a girlfriend, or not getting the publications I’d hoped for: the talent goes with me. The meaning of the word ‘talent’ is quite flexible depending on the circumstance, but ultimately it means I trust that what I have within myself will be enough, even if it manifests as emptiness.

So maybe the ability to give up an identity is also a source of pride, and also part of my identity. That will give me something to think about on runs through the desert, divested of so much, or unburdened of it all, emptiness matching emptiness.

For more mindfulness thoughts and strategies, look here.