Today I am grateful for catharsis.  I’m not sure how much of the story I will eventually share because it is still in progress, but my husband and I have had a tumultuous several weeks to the point where we knew we were going to have to make a decision about our marriage.  He and my son are on a trip with my father, my uncle, my brother, a mutual friend, and a group of my father’s friends and when they left I felt my whole world shatter.  The people you love leaving on uncertain terms is such an unsettling feeling.  I had a lot to process in those first few hours.  I went about my normal business, cleaning and organizing.  As I was putting things away, I couldn’t contain the emotion.  I started howling and crying like I hadn’t done in ages.  It felt like part of me had been ripped out, I felt nauseous with uncertainty about what we do next.  I cried for about 2 hours.  Once I pulled myself together, I finished planting some of my seeds and working in the dirt.  Then I did the dishes.  Then I worked out for over an hour.  Then I made myself some food—I hadn’t eaten all day.  That was my first meal alone in ages.  I went upstairs and I put laundry away, organized my son’s drawers.  Then I drew a hot bath with bubbles and salts and I sat in it for over an hour listening to healing frequencies.  I almost fell asleep a few times.  It was after that when I felt the weight fall off of me.  I can’t control what comes next, what decisions we will make individually and together.  But in that moment I could feel some peace. 

Today I am grateful to have a wish granted.  There are times they say be careful what you wish for—and it is true.  But even if those wishes don’t turn out how we expect them to, there is still something to learn from them.  I’ve often spoken of needing to be alone to figure things out.  I haven’t been without my husband and son for the last 7.5 years—we haven’t spent one night away from each other.  I haven’t spent one night away from my husband in nearly 17 years.  Even if people drive each other crazy, we get used to their presence.  So I have been looking forward to some peace being by myself, time to process and reflect while they were on this trip.  The circumstances of them leaving left me wanting and sad.  When you have that level of uncertainty, the not knowing makes loneliness a dangerous game.  Dark thoughts took over for a while regarding the state of my relationship and what I needed to do about it.  Fear.  Anger.  But as I processed through it, I realized that all couples go through rough patches.  Maybe not as bad as this one built around as much history, but they do.  As I was alone, I realized that I hated this kind of quiet.  That if I kept up my end of this bullshit I would be alone forever.  So I got my wish to have some solitude and quiet but it came with a heavy price.  A lot to work through.  We will see where it goes.

Today I am grateful to have the opportunity to learn about myself.  I’ve spent literally decades doing everything I’ve been told.  I’ve spent the last 7 years, moreso than in previous years, trying to keep our heads above water.  I’ve spent the last 3 years torn in so many directions, uncertain about which way to go, future projecting to see what the best path would be, splitting myself in no less than 5 pieces.  That kind of division leaves anyone empty and fearful.  It also leaves them exhausted and unable to process the day to day, to make their own decisions.  In the course of finding out about the quiet, understanding I am not a victim became key.  Understanding that I’ve repeated a pattern I learned about from my mother is key.  I have NO resentment toward my mom—she worked her ass off and she did what she could.  She repeated what she learned and she expressed what was done to her from my grandmother.  My mom took all of that shit and still is one of the most supportive and generous people I know.  But I can’t keep going down the victim path.  I didn’t realize how bad it was until I sat in the quiet and until a friend pointed out that this is where I come from.  All the splitting was my choice.  Yes, it was done for a reason, but it was a reason I thought I had to do at the time—I didn’t have to keep doing it.  I am grateful to see where I can change that behavior.  Make a decision.  No longer be the victim.

Today I am grateful to slow down.  Women in particular have the brunt of multi-tasking.  We are taught to wear the ability to multi-task like a fucking cape, like we have some super power.  They never tell us the long term consequences of lack of focus.  How it starts to feel like you can’t even complete a thought.  How it feels like you will never get everything done.  The frustration of starting and stopping things a million times.  Missing details and events and deadlines because of shifting priorities—then feeling guilty about missing details and events and deadlines.  The pressure to say yes and not knowing how to say no.  The anxiety of forgetting something, the clutter of sticky notes, notebooks, calendar reminders on the phone, actual calendars.  We are more than enough without having to be everything for everyone.  We lose pieces of ourselves as we try to maintain some image of what we are supposed to be—the idea that unless we can do it all without breaking a sweat that we have somehow failed.  The anger that comes when the stress wins—and it wins often.  The impact on our relationships, the resentment when it feels like the other isn’t doing enough.  The realization that it’s all a choice.  When we are forced to slow down, we are forced to reevaluate where we are—the choices we’ve made, whether or not it’s something we can change.  Our role in it.  What we really want.  We think we can take on the world and all it’s parts when all we need is to take on our part of the world.  Sometimes we need to slow down to remind ourselves that we only need to take one step at a time.  And that step simply needs to be in the right direction. 

Today I am grateful for connecting to myself.  I don’t know how to maintain it yet but I am aware now that accepting ease and allowing ease opens the doorway to allowing life, allowing what we truly want and who we really are to come to fruition. Embracing surrender and honesty about who we are, what we want, our capabilities, our ability to change—all of that is a state of what is.  Ther is nothing more we need to do than be with who we are in this exact moment. Being who we are will bring us exactly where we need to be.  When we allow what is, we allow life to flow, and as we’ve discussed many times, flow is where life actually happens.  It is here that we connect with who we are, knowing what we like and what we don’t like, what our preferred pace is, what we want to accomplish in life.  Ther is no pressure here.  There is no need to be and do a million things at once—to be all things for all people.  No, we simply are who we are and we are firmly grounded right where we are.  Sometimes we have to see the dark and embrace it in order to learn to step toward the light. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.