As Is, Imagine That

Garden at Sainte-Adresse (1867) Claude Monet

Do you recall seeing in stores, when purchasing a house, the As Is, tag? No improvements will be made, and the sale is final, with the condition of how one finds the product.

As Is, a phrase used to indicated the existing condition of something without any modifications or improvements.

I read recently in Elizabeths Gilbert’s, Letters From Love, on Substack, a woman who heard from Love as she listened, that she was accepted and loved, As Is. Cathryn Mezzo, granted me permission to share her letter in its entirety: My heartfelt gratitude for your generosity, Cathryn.

Hello Lovely!

You’ve seen pieces in a furniture store marked, “AS IS.” Meaning the buyer will accept any perceived imperfections without discussion or negotiation. The buyer will accept the furniture in its current state.

We do the same with you. We love you “AS IS.” Whatever “IS” happens to be at any given moment.

So whenever you feel unloveable, slap an “AS IS” sticker on yourself as a reminder that you are held and seen, always, by unconditional love.

Yes, it’s that simple.

Love,

LOVE

Nothing needed to be changed, rearranged, gotten rid of, added to… Cathryn was accepted, belonged and deeply loved, As Is. Imagine that!

Truly, can any of us buy into this one hundred percent? The idea of it I adore, yet I become cringy, even sweaty, when I envision getting to the place of a full STOP, ACCEPTANCE of myself AS IS.

I was born into a culture of constant improvement, revisions, one doesn’t dare rest on their laurels of feeling a full acceptance just as they are. (This is a memo I am shredding, it was never mine, yet passed in utero.)

I even recall how freeing it felt when I allowed my hair to go gray,  my face to not be adorned with makeup, and to forever ditch my bra. Now, please, I do have support, just not in a traditional way. Camisole tops are a life saver. Bright assorted colors, can be worn comfortably underneath my clothes, and I don’t have any fear of an “underwire jabbing/attack.”

How do we arrive in this realm of being truly accepting of our worthiness just as we are now? It requires patient unlearning, practice, and endless pauses.

We are acceptable.

We are worthy.

We belong.

We do not need to bend, contort, try more, do more, to dwell in this place of ongoing grace. It is ours, waiting to take our hands, and nestle into our hearts.

"Be yourself; everyone else is taken." Oscar Wilde

Trying to accept our lives As Is, becomes an ongoing practice. No doubt events have occurred, that we might never have wished for, yet here we are. How to learn to live fully alongside of them? This is the question, that lingers, asking to be fully turned toward, and not away from. I have no answers, just a lot of scrapes, bumps, and bruises, when I resist. Fewer of those are showing up currently. A softening into the reality that this IS my life, As Is.

Robinson Jeffers shares, “Life is good, be it stubbornly long or/suddenly/A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains.”