This week I’ve been house sitting for some friends of mine, and today I started a small painting project for them. I spent most the day thinking about how much my mood improves when I’m working, how much better I feel about myself. It’s a topic that’s been on my mind a lot the last few months because I’ve spent so much time lately not doing a damn thing except watching Grace and Frankie and Downtown Abbey (and judging myself for it the entire time). And it’s like I have this underlying guilt about the whole situation that’s my life right now–not having a job, not having a calendar full of to-do items, not being “productive.”

Productive. That’s the word that keeps comes up in therapy. It’s like I always have to be doing something I deem worthwhile, moving objects from here to there, earning a dollar, “succeeding.” I look at people who are able to sit on their porch and drink their morning coffee for an hour, and on the one hand, I’m jealous that they can relax. On the other hand, I’m judging them for not multitasking, listening to a self-help podcast while they down their caffeine.

At one point, maybe a year ago, my therapist said, “How would you feel if I told you that you couldn’t read any non-fiction books, listen to any interviews with spiritual teachers, or watch any self-help videos for a week?” And it’s like my butthole did that thing that happens when you first realize you’ve got food poisoning. But then I calmed down, took a deep breath, and said I thought I could do it.

Well, it ended up being the greatest thing, like somehow it was okay to not be improving, striving for perfection every damn minute of every damn day. But sometime over the last year, I’ve forgotten the lesson. Or maybe now I’m just being asked to apply what I’ve learned on a broader scale. (The universe does a lot of shit like this. It’s like a video game. You pass one level, and then, damn it, you just move on to a harder one.)

And I guess this just feels like a really hard level, spending most days not doing much other than going to the mailbox and changing the cat liter. And yes, I get the irony that I think NOT working is difficult, but again, I apparently have a lot of my self-worth tied up in work and productivity.

This evening, I went to my friend Bonnie’s house. Bonnie and her husband, Todd, have offered their home as a space for me to teach dance lessons, so tonight I worked with a couple who are getting married in a few weeks. After the lesson, Bonnie and Todd invited me to stay for dinner, and then Bonnie asked if I wanted to dance for fun, which we did. For a minute. And then I started teaching. I couldn’t help it.

Before I left, Bonnie said, “You didn’t have to teach me anything. I really did just want to dance for fun. You know you don’t owe us anything.”

On my way home, I started thinking about when I was a teenager. My dad was a pharmacist, and he was a arrested for misusing his license, and he spent almost six years in prison. Well, Mom was pretty sick, so we didn’t have a lot of money. I remember having to return one car to the bank and them coming to get another. For a few years, I attended First Baptist Church in Van Buren, and one of the Sunday school classes gave my family this cardboard box wrapped in Valentine’s paper, and it was full of canned goods and Kraft macaroni. And I know that it was the sweetest thing, that they just wanted to give, but the box sat in a corner of the kitchen for years, and it was like this constant reminder of how we weren’t able to provide for ourselves.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about feeling embarrassed, and maybe it goes back to Dad being arrested and the Valentine’s box full of non-perishable food items. I’m just going to go ahead and say that’s exactly where it started, watching our nice things being repossessed because we could no longer pay for them. I remember one day, as a sixteen-year-old, having to go to the bank to meet with a loan officer. The whole meeting was about whether or not we could stay in our house until Dad got home from prison, since we weren’t able to pay for it. A family friend was there with me, but I just remember being totally overwhelmed, way in over my head. I remember crying in front of the loan officer, like I’m just a kid.

The bank ended up letting us stay, which I get now is a pretty big deal. It’s a huge grace. That being said, the whole situation really left me with this feeling that I had to earn my way in the world, that it’s somehow embarrassing to be in a situation where you need help. And what I’m thinking in this moment is that my need to be productive every damn minute of every damn day isn’t really about my self-worth, it’s about wanting to not be embarrassed. Because that’s what it feels like to not have a job or drive a nicer car. That’s what it feels like to move back in with my parents. And I know Bonnie and Todd well enough to know their hearts, that they really do want to give me a space to teach dance and they really do want me to stay for dinner–because we’re friends–and not because they feel sorry for me. And still it’s the hardest grace for me to wrap my head around, that I don’t have to earn my place in this world, that I don’t have to grow up and have all the answers as fast as I think I do, that there’s love available for me in each new moment if I can only accept it.