The trip called my life has been pretty smooth and predictable for the last year or so. Really nice ride on back dirt roads. Many pleasures, large and small. A tiny baby boy-to-be brings vast pleasure to this upcoming Granny.
That part of life flows effortlessly on…while other parts have taken a hit. My beautiful back road with the overarching trees, so green in summer that the air glowed with color, are gone. Concrete will replace dirt, houses will replace meadows, and I am sad about that. But life moves. Constantly and not always to our personal plan.
Assumptions about ourselves, plans we make, risks we take (or don’t), all of that life business, constantly shifts for me. Every day is an act of reinvention, major or minor. I feel the shift more than I used to … I glided for so long in a safe cocoon but something happened, I woke up, I freed parts of myself I didn’t realized I’d chained, I changed inside.
Almost every day a new epiphany. I am the center of one life. Mine. That was a shocker and it started happening way back in March in California when I saw Tim and Alicia. What I found out is that they love me but they don’t need me. Tim doesn’t need me. It is not necessary to plan my life around when I can come to California next. I have relaxed. I can go where I need to go, not where I thought I needed to be to keep this image I had of myself as “a good mom.” I am happy for all my visits to all of the places my children have gone since they left home. But I finally understand that I can be a good mom from wherever I happen to be on the planet. And with Mike and Jessica, their life is even more obviously in a place where I am welcome and beloved, but not necessary. It took me a really long time to finally relax into that realization and learn to hold on more loosely.
Of course all bets are off when baby comes. I have no idea what that will do to my new-found inner peace:)
I don’t know what’s around the corner or what it will look like, but I’m not thinking I need to move to Oregon to be close to the boys anymore. Hawaii would be nice (it is closer to both of them than Detroit!) but Hawaii is a state of mind as well as an actual state.
Everything changes all the time and where I am needed most now is inside the heart of my very own singular life. So here we go into this summer of Cindy. I’ll send you a postcard.
Cynthia Harrison 
wish I could think about things the way you do so rational about life……. I never gave anything much thought just lived until late in life and now with so many loved ones gone it’s harder to move on……. but I have and hope I have inner peace with most of my decisions……………. love your messages of the heart Aunt Wese (you make me cry) xo
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Aunt Louise, I began studying Buddhism in about 1990 because I was desperate. It changed everything for me. I didn’t use to be so rational, I think you might remember:) thank you for being my #1 fan. And I am yours!
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I will “check the mail” everyday to see where you are on your journey. I’ve never felt settled for long in my life, whether it’s meant to be because that’s my journey or it’s the people who play a part or due to decisions I’ve made…I’m not sure. I confidently sent my therapist a thank you card after a huge transformation between ages 29 & 31, and then said hello again a few years later when life shifted again. There have been other health professionals before and since, and that’s how it’s gone my entire life. What I have been able to do is get more comfortable with the ups and downs.
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Sharon, I had so much therapy in my 20s and it saved me then. I’ve had a few check-ins since but what I really like is the Middle Way because I’m the one who finds my own answers. As you are finding yours.
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Thank you for sharing your journey. I love the freedom you are finding. Holding on more loosely to everything and everyone is key. I try to do that too, to fully appreciate the moments with the people I care about. To let those moments flow over an open palm instead of trying to grasp them with a clenched fist. Enjoy your summer and the bits of nature still around you.
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Nia, boy that was a difficult lesson to learn since I tend to hold tightly. Always have. But I’m learning:)
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Nice post, C! xxx (sorry, too tired to write anything profound, but I enjoyed it!)
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Thanks Terry. I’m tired today too! Pushing through as school starts tomorrow and I need to finish getting my lecture notes together. I put them around here somewhere …
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