On reading it, I realize my last post sounded sad. But really, I wasn't sad when I wrote it. I was thinking what a positive experience I'd had, reclaiming my inner foster baby. I had spent years thinking of that little girl as a separate person from me. She had a different name, a temporary set of parents. I separated her off and regarded her as a distinct individual who had nothing whatsoever to do with me. As it turns out, that wasn't really true, and changing my perception of that was a very powerful thing. There is more work I have to do, integrating and healing so that I can leave the past behind me and get on with the important job of living in the now.
I'm remarkably calm right now. I have a million things to do, and now that SG has hit the road, I've got no one to help me do it. But I know I can do this thing called living my life because I've done it before. I'm capable. I'm strong. And I have lots of support, both near and far, including SG, who is always just at the other end of the phone if I need him.
Getting everyone out the door this morning was remarkably easy. I made myself a checklist for every evening and every morning. Lunches. Meds. Dogs, horses, chickens, cats. Coffee. Laptop. All the essentials - and I still had time for makeup (thank you short hair for taking only seconds to be done). And I was so relaxed I had to keep double checking myself to figure out if I was still me. Because this is not the me I remember being before.
The me I used to be would have created so much drama around her man leaving her for an extended period of time. I would have clung and cried and wailed. His leaving would have been so stressful and miserable for him because I would have been all undone. It would have been all about ME ME ME ME ME. And sure, some of its about how I'm feeling. Sad, missing him. Lonely sometimes when I want to feel his touch and I know I will need to wait. But its also about how HE feels and what HE needs. No guilt, he's not leaving me, he's heading to his job. He deserves to have a smile and a kiss and a loving sendoff, not a crap bunch of emotional mama drama. My children (especially) deserve to have a mother who isn't sobbing in a corner because oh God I'm going to have to be alone! They need a mother who is fully present and engaged.
I don't think I'm feeling this way simply because its the logical way to be. I think it has to do with love, faith, letting go of fear and the need to control the things that scare me, trust, and a whole lot of healing. And its not that fear and hurt aren't there - of course they are. But we can let go of our fear when we understand that we don't really have any control of the things that we are afraid of anyway.
Fighting things, trying to make everything go the way we need it to is a terrible waste of our time and our energy. It depletes our spirit, steals our joy, saps our strength. Buddha said, "The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly." If I am worrying about situations I cannot change, how can I live in the moment? If I am afraid of how certain things are going to make me feel, how can I recognize the small joys of just being where I am right now?
In the hurricane's eye is stillness. In the center of yourself, there is stillness as well. Sometimes you have to stop listening to the rest of everything else, get out of the wind of your angst and your troubles, to find it.
It takes work, but it is so worth it. My life isn't perfect or easy, but it doesn't have to be as hard as I used to make it.
