Okay so I think this will be my last move for 8 months to a year. When I look back over the past year it has been one hung change after another. First I moved last Sept from Tx (where I had loved for 4 yrs) to Charlottesville Virgina. In Nov my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I flew home to be with her for two weeks and spent Thanks giving with her and my sister.
I came home and my life as a knew it fell apart and I moved out in Jan to live with my best friend in Hahira GA. I lived with her until May when I moved in with a co-worker. I lived with Laura until Labor-day weekend when I moved into my own place!!!
My life has settled down quiet a bit since then. My personal life is 89% sorted and my mom is doing amazing and well on the way to recovery. My cat (Ben) no longer hisses, growls or cries all the time. My other cat (Sandy) has only thrown up once since we moved and he had been up to two times a week not to long ago. The improvement in their comfort and disposition warms my heart.
living room
I have really enjoyed seeming all of my things again. I forgot how when you see your personality reflected in the things around you there is a sense of “I belong here” that naturally goes with it. In its own way it is quiet telling that for the better part of a year I have in very real terms felt homeless. Not that I was not loved or cared for but that there was no possibility of permanence in the places that I have been.
Now I feel the opportunity to be expansive not just physically but in the ability to let my guard down and just be me, what ever that looks like. I get up at 7 am because I like too. I work out for an hour because I want to. I have a quiet time because I need to and then I shower and start my day.
I know it is not the life for everyone, quiet and full of cats but it is the life I choose for myself. For too many years i was not strong enough and then when I was I chose to give it up for something I though I wanted more. Now I find myself re-learning how to live on my own and I can say I’m proud that at each turn though hard or frightening I keep on going.
I keep fighting for the life I know I want and deserve and will have again; with or without someone else in it. I have come to realize that the main component that matters is me. If I am calm and dedicated to my goals the rest will follow in its own good time.
So here’s to all of us that life shook up and said “try a different path” weather we thought we wanted it or not and made the best of it; keeping our harts warm as we learn to live again.
‘We meditate on the transcendental Glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of Heave. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds.’
When I was in are school I was always drawn to things with perfect or near perfect symmetry. There is something about four corners and two halves that speaks of deep grounding and balance. Still my teachers tried ardently to express the idea that a triangular (3) formation or the “X” of five was visually more simulating. Over time I have come to understand this concept and the inherent direction or movement that is implied but the odd numbers, but I am still drawn to the balanced, even more.
Why? Do you ask am I on some esoteric rant about visual balance? I am aware that in life we have many reflections of truth around us all the time and for me this is a truth about myself: I long for a balanced, quiet life. I find it interesting that though this longing has been so dominant, my life has rarely resembled it. I moved a lot as a small child. I went to two different high schools. I moved three times during college and have stayed no more than four years in any place since then. Don’t worry, I find all of this perplexing myself and it causes me to wonder…
It is the place that make you feel at home? Or is it possible that my life is playing the 3/5 so that my heart can know that it is my 2/4? The more I grow and stretch, the more I believe this is so. If my life were clam and stable to the point of stagnation would I have ever gotten here? Some of the best moments of my life happened on the wings of change, distinct parts of myself would have laid dormant or withered had I not been forced open doors I thought were nailed shut.
So her I stand in a 3/5 place again. I know what my life will look like for the next year or so but after that…I can see a life for myself again where I understand where I am going and who I chose to be, but its frightening. I question how much of me is real. I spent years trying to make the 3/5 become a 2/4 and only caused myself a lot of pain. Now that I know my life is unlikely to ever be the 2/4 I long for, the responsibility falls squarely on my shoulders to make my inner life what my outer life is not.
I must be brave enough to seek my own truth. To rediscover the person that I was and find out what she has in common with the person I am now. It feels like there is a vast divide between the two but this is my work. There is no one in this life who can do this for me and the longer I run the longer I leave my whole life in that 3/5 state of ambiguity and imbalance. So starting today I will be more mindful of my choices. I will choose to nurture myself, instead of self medicate. I will learn to be quiet again and trust the voices in my heart. I will let myself love and be loved.
So…I know I’ve kind of fallen off the map but sometimes life becomes overwhelming and we have to pull back a bit and take care of ourselves and reconsider. This is where I have been for the past month.
I received formal separation papers from my ex-husband, did not celebrate my five-year anniversary and just drove 11 hrs one way to get the rest of my stuff from VA and bring it to GA. Thank God for good friends and sleep. (This is not my photo) We passed this sign on the way to VA, I could not help but feel the irony.
In the wake of all this I have decided a few things and feel that as the next month rolls by I’ll get a better grip on what I want to do and how to make that happen. I’m not technically divorced because there is a house to sell. But I’m changing all the things I can with out papers and have started to refer to him as me “x”. This is actually a very liberating change.
I don’t know what my life will look like from here, but I do know it will be better. It will hurt less and have more hope. Thanks for hanging in there with me. I know that it has been stop and start for a while now but that is what my life has felt like for the last six months. Hopefully I will get in a groove and settle down a bit. One should not move three times in six months, it’s a lot of work! And it make Ben (cat) neurotic.
So here’s to the last big step on my part and the hope I have for the days to come.
I know it is not the life for everyone, quiet and full of cats but it is the life I choose for myself. For too many years i was not strong enough and then when I was I chose to give it up for something I though I wanted more. Now I find myself re-learning how to live on my own and I can say I’m proud that at each turn though hard or frightening I keep on going.
