It's Saturday morning.
And it's so quiet.
I'm pretty sure it's so quiet that I can hear the delicate push of the tomato plants, in the back, pushing their tiny sun-yellow buds to the sun.
My Mom would tell me that if I tried hard enough, I might hear the stir of faeries tromping through the dirt and the leaves, the petals and the trees. Never to be seen, only heard.
The small piece of silence is a funny balance to the chaos of the past few weeks, months...and year, really. With plans each weekend, I feel some delight at knowing that my life has carried on and that I've acknowledged that when bad things happen, life doesn't wait for you to keep up. And, I've taken that train and moved. Such movement isn't done in the spirit to forget. I've moved at 1,000 miles per hour because those were the circumstances offered me- and I wasn't going to pass up weekends spent on the water with friends. Nor would I pass up the opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments and celebrations of friends. The weekends of social craziness swept me up in their arms, have introduced me to new friends, have forced me to keep my head to the sun and have supported a transition with such effortlessness that I have a hard time tracking the events of each and every moment.
And then, life gives me this quiet.
A quiet so profound, all that's left is appreciation and calm.
Finally some calm.
And, herein, lies that thing of "balance." It's that space that forces one to recall, stew and move in to memory. And I realize, we move so fast, all of us, just to keep up sometimes. Sometimes, we move without thinking or pondering because the moment is ripe, right there in front of us, and we take it. We move at a speed, forgetting the broken parts of who we were so that we can move in to the solidity of who we are becoming. Even in my thirties. I am not yet who I am and this quiet reminds me that of the world and of experiences, I still know and realize so little. And I have so much to gain from this quiet as it pushes me in to this space of something rather curious.
At 34, I know I'm good at "handling" the stuff that comes, the sadness that comes. The surprises that change families, that stuff that stills us in step. And while I understand the logistics of coping, I also must surmise that I am not who I was even a year ago. I am not the badass I told myself I was. I am just not the same person. And in my stubbornness to find my place of success, life broke it all in to a million tiny pieces because life knew me better than I knew myself. Life broke that girl because I was too stubborn to change on my own will.
Life breaks us to make a point. I believe this to be a cliche as much as you do, trust me. But there's truth, here. When we are so wrapped up in being and trying for something so dissimilar to who we are, innately, life reflects lies, sometimes in ways that are so tragic and so dark, that we cannot help but question "why?" Life is not fair. It's not about what's fair. It's about how we choose to cope with those pieces which "seem" unfair. It's about choosing to be who we are, innately.
And, while I may not be who I was even a year ago, there's still more in knowing that I'm not sure who I'll be in another year. And that, my friends, is such a trip. I am enjoying this shoot down the rabbit hole. I have never adventured as I do now. That I cannot see a destined place for me might frighten the hell out of who I was last year. And now, that adventure seems so wide open and the joy at discovering the reality that "it's never too late to be who you want to be" is a journey I am happy to take.
I am a mess of seriousness and light-heartedness. In the quiet, I am quiet right alongside it. And in the open air, I laugh because I can. I make mistakes now more frequently. I make a fool of myself and I play harder. I laugh louder and I smile more often, just because I can. And for all of this, I am grateful for the broken bits because I see now that the broken bits don't "define" us, really. They push us. And rather than fighting to fit in some measured box of "success," I just "am" right now. I am measured not by my past or what ever may have happened. I am measured by who I am in this instant and by who I choose to be moving forward. The freedom of that is profound. There is so much to be in this life, and the fact that we get to choose is something I will never take for granted. Ever. We get to choose.
"I am happy for the trauma" said no one ever.
But, I am grateful for the trauma. I am grateful for the trauma.
Perhaps to say that I am happy for it is a stretch, but to be grateful for it is something so real in me that it is hard to ignore. I am a lighter person for it. I am a happier person for it. I am starting over because of it. It's not often we give ourselves the chance to adjust to a new person. We meld in to what has existed. We mold to the expectations set before us by a set of beliefs and people who don't even know us. Yes, I pay my taxes and I have a job. I pay bills. And I know that some day I will die, just like the rest of us. But I also know that there is so much kinetic energy out there, pushing us to be. There are so many chances we pass up and so many journeys we fear because they remain outside of the sphere of "practical."
Those who know me best know that I am not innately a person who is "practical." And my drive to be so has diminished in to something so open, that the magnitude of such an opportunity sometimes takes my breath away. I am in awe of my own luck and good fortune.
I would never have stumbled upon this stretch of my journey had things remained as they were. And I will never take that for granted. Ever.
There are so many colors, so much kindness and so much adventure in this life. Had the events of the last year not taken place, I would've remained stuck on the wrong trail.
And while re-building has it's tough spots, I am more than grateful for the freedom of a new trail.
So, a high Cheers to those who choose the freedom of an un-stuck path. Life will not wait for us to keep up but she will always push us in the direction of the open spaces we need. We just have to be open enough to see them.
And it's so quiet.
I'm pretty sure it's so quiet that I can hear the delicate push of the tomato plants, in the back, pushing their tiny sun-yellow buds to the sun.
My Mom would tell me that if I tried hard enough, I might hear the stir of faeries tromping through the dirt and the leaves, the petals and the trees. Never to be seen, only heard.
The small piece of silence is a funny balance to the chaos of the past few weeks, months...and year, really. With plans each weekend, I feel some delight at knowing that my life has carried on and that I've acknowledged that when bad things happen, life doesn't wait for you to keep up. And, I've taken that train and moved. Such movement isn't done in the spirit to forget. I've moved at 1,000 miles per hour because those were the circumstances offered me- and I wasn't going to pass up weekends spent on the water with friends. Nor would I pass up the opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments and celebrations of friends. The weekends of social craziness swept me up in their arms, have introduced me to new friends, have forced me to keep my head to the sun and have supported a transition with such effortlessness that I have a hard time tracking the events of each and every moment.
And then, life gives me this quiet.
A quiet so profound, all that's left is appreciation and calm.
Finally some calm.
And, herein, lies that thing of "balance." It's that space that forces one to recall, stew and move in to memory. And I realize, we move so fast, all of us, just to keep up sometimes. Sometimes, we move without thinking or pondering because the moment is ripe, right there in front of us, and we take it. We move at a speed, forgetting the broken parts of who we were so that we can move in to the solidity of who we are becoming. Even in my thirties. I am not yet who I am and this quiet reminds me that of the world and of experiences, I still know and realize so little. And I have so much to gain from this quiet as it pushes me in to this space of something rather curious.
At 34, I know I'm good at "handling" the stuff that comes, the sadness that comes. The surprises that change families, that stuff that stills us in step. And while I understand the logistics of coping, I also must surmise that I am not who I was even a year ago. I am not the badass I told myself I was. I am just not the same person. And in my stubbornness to find my place of success, life broke it all in to a million tiny pieces because life knew me better than I knew myself. Life broke that girl because I was too stubborn to change on my own will.
Life breaks us to make a point. I believe this to be a cliche as much as you do, trust me. But there's truth, here. When we are so wrapped up in being and trying for something so dissimilar to who we are, innately, life reflects lies, sometimes in ways that are so tragic and so dark, that we cannot help but question "why?" Life is not fair. It's not about what's fair. It's about how we choose to cope with those pieces which "seem" unfair. It's about choosing to be who we are, innately.
And, while I may not be who I was even a year ago, there's still more in knowing that I'm not sure who I'll be in another year. And that, my friends, is such a trip. I am enjoying this shoot down the rabbit hole. I have never adventured as I do now. That I cannot see a destined place for me might frighten the hell out of who I was last year. And now, that adventure seems so wide open and the joy at discovering the reality that "it's never too late to be who you want to be" is a journey I am happy to take.
I am a mess of seriousness and light-heartedness. In the quiet, I am quiet right alongside it. And in the open air, I laugh because I can. I make mistakes now more frequently. I make a fool of myself and I play harder. I laugh louder and I smile more often, just because I can. And for all of this, I am grateful for the broken bits because I see now that the broken bits don't "define" us, really. They push us. And rather than fighting to fit in some measured box of "success," I just "am" right now. I am measured not by my past or what ever may have happened. I am measured by who I am in this instant and by who I choose to be moving forward. The freedom of that is profound. There is so much to be in this life, and the fact that we get to choose is something I will never take for granted. Ever. We get to choose.
"I am happy for the trauma" said no one ever.
But, I am grateful for the trauma. I am grateful for the trauma.
Perhaps to say that I am happy for it is a stretch, but to be grateful for it is something so real in me that it is hard to ignore. I am a lighter person for it. I am a happier person for it. I am starting over because of it. It's not often we give ourselves the chance to adjust to a new person. We meld in to what has existed. We mold to the expectations set before us by a set of beliefs and people who don't even know us. Yes, I pay my taxes and I have a job. I pay bills. And I know that some day I will die, just like the rest of us. But I also know that there is so much kinetic energy out there, pushing us to be. There are so many chances we pass up and so many journeys we fear because they remain outside of the sphere of "practical."
Those who know me best know that I am not innately a person who is "practical." And my drive to be so has diminished in to something so open, that the magnitude of such an opportunity sometimes takes my breath away. I am in awe of my own luck and good fortune.
I would never have stumbled upon this stretch of my journey had things remained as they were. And I will never take that for granted. Ever.
There are so many colors, so much kindness and so much adventure in this life. Had the events of the last year not taken place, I would've remained stuck on the wrong trail.
And while re-building has it's tough spots, I am more than grateful for the freedom of a new trail.
So, a high Cheers to those who choose the freedom of an un-stuck path. Life will not wait for us to keep up but she will always push us in the direction of the open spaces we need. We just have to be open enough to see them.
