Several years ago, I committed to chanting a little bit every day. For years, I have upkept this commitment flawlessly. And then yesterday, I simply forgot. I woke in the morning, embarrassed, ashamed, that something I had promised to do, I had stuck to with such steadfastness for years, simply slipped my mind. After I chanted, I thought a bit about my slip-up.

I realize I am, in general, a person who is diligent in upholding my commitments, this is a point of pride for me. This is a trait which I have honed, and which I have chosen to identify with. In fact, I often consider my willfulness as my own personal superpower. ALANA WHO CAN BEND THE WORLD WITH THE SHEER FORCE OF HER WILL.

Even still, last night I forgot to chant. I forgot and failed in upholding a commitment I held so strongly I had managed to fulfill it unwaveringly for years I wasn’t sick. Eric wasn’t hospitalized. There was no excuse, or big reason to explain my slip, I just forgot.

Even this small thing, taking a few minutes to chant a day, a commitment that seems so obviously in my control, isn’t. It can’t be if a random slip of the mind is enough to derail both my commitment itself and the identity of my so-dearly-held-self-view of ALANA THE GREAT PROMISE KEEPER.

Even bringing the ‘superpower’ of my will and persistence to bear on this simple task wasn’t enough for me to avoid slipping-up and forgetting. So much for bending the world with the force of  my will, I couldn’t even bend my own actions to my will. I couldn’t  bend my memory to will.

How can I be this trait, how can I define myself by it, when it simply stops, fails, can’t be counted on at all? No one would call it a superpower to be able to do something some of the time, assuming the circumstances to do that thing were in place. That’s not power. That is not an identity.  

No these traits, they are just habits I have deluded myself into honing for the benefits I believe they afford me. For the identity I think it grants me. I never even consider the costs. I never think twice about the busted hip I have from my yoga days forcing my will on this body. I don’t like to dwell on the many hearts I broke forcing my will on my lovers. I don’t like to think too much about what it means to be the kind of wife who is always asking her husband to bend to her will, her desires and preferences.

Oh and the sheer effort, the work of mustering so much will, and the disappointment, self-loathing, when it fails to have the effects I want. Self-loathing, as though this trait of willfulness, this habit of keeping commitments was ever about me, was ever who I am, when a simple slip of the mind is all it takes to nullify them.