In This Moment

I drove down the road in the early morning traffic, headed to get the new windshield for the van.  I turned up Florence and laughed.  It started as a slow warming glow in my heart and then spread outward until I was smiling and then giggling and then laughing outright.  I finally fit in the skin I'm in.  I know who I am, what I want, what I can achieve, how strong I am, what I'm made of and how I indelibly impact people's lives with the simplest touch.  I will let nothing stand in my way.  If it is meant to be, it WILL be.  I laughed until Florence was done singing "The Drumming Song" then smiled all the way to the auto glass repair shop.  A warm glow emanating outwardly the way a slow-burning lavender incense will permeate a room. I held onto that peace for nearly the entire day.

Since November, when Sissy was hospitalized for attempting suicide, I haven't gone past six days without tears.  This has been the most trying time of my life, far and away.  I still have no clue where the twists and turns of tomorrow will take me but I'm slowly emerging from this transformational experience as a strong, vibrant, amazing woman that I enjoy greeting in the morning mirror while I brush my teeth.  I finally see myself as the person I was born to be.  I have harnessed the power of my inner tigress Chinese zodiac and tied it to the balance of my Libra sign.  This has been no small feat.  I have often felt at odds with myself.  Now I see the potential of both to catapult me toward what the circumstances and abuses of my life have abated.

For the past several months I have prayed, "let what wants to come, come.  Let what wants to go, go.  If it is mine it will stay, if not, something better will replace it."  Last week I added to my daily prayer, "I call upon your Divine Will to guide me.  Give me a clear sign of the direction I am to go in and if I set my foot to the wrong path, stop me."  These prayers bring so much peace and power.  Am I seeing things coming and going?  Yes and no.  Am I getting clear signs?  Yes and no.  When it's a "no" I breathe.  Long, slow, deep cleansing breaths.  When it is a Yes or some semblance of a yes, I breathe.  Long, slow, deep cleansing breaths.  This is how I am, in this moment, here, now, today.  I am light, I am love, I am healed, I am whole.  I am as I should be.

What should I be, you ask? 

As I am, right here, right now, in this moment.

Yes.  It's incredibly vague.  Yes, it's obnoxiously inefficient as an answer. It is what it is.  If I think past this, I shut down.  So I breathe.  Long, slow, deep cleansing breaths.  Then I accept it.  I am here, right now, in this moment.  What will be, will be.

There is another intense lesson I have learned in my life odyssey, including the years of my abusive marriage and even long before that.  As much as the pain and heartache of life has been unbearable at times and has laid me bare, I can stand firm on the truth that without these passages of time and suffering, I would not be who I am, I would not love as I do.  I would not have the peace and patience I have today.  I would not understand the grace that has been given to me that I can freely give to others.  I would not know how to forgive myself let alone others.  I would not have embraced the need for transformation or the ability to accept that many others do not choose to take this high road toward self-actualization.  This path has made parenting challenging children, easier to emotionally process.  The intensity of the burden is not less, the feelings of it being unfair and overwhelming are not less.  But the acceptance that because of this journey and my willingness to change as I was meant to change, has allowed me to see the good despite the bad.  I have much to give as a result.

The night alarm is back on.  Sissy is back to her old tricks.  AB has had to learn some adolescent lessons himself today.  WG is on restriction until Tuesday for behavior issues.  I had a relaxing weekend despite being away from home and though I cried today, I made it three days without a drop.  I'll get there.  Or not.  Maybe this weeping thing is also part of my transformed self.  So I am as I am, right here, right now, in this moment.  Not knowing if I am moving anytime soon.  Unsure if I will have a job and where exactly this journey will take me.  I know not if I will continue to be alone or if I will cross paths with a future partner in this process.  I know only that if something wants to come, it will.  If it is meant to go, it will.  I release the desire to control it and I breathe while I wait.

Written last Sunday and posted on my FB wall:

Trying trying every day
Try to push the blues away.
Try to make the smile show
To make my lovely face aglow.
Try to be in this moment now
trying trying, I know how!
Feel the warmth upon my face
Know the love of good and grace.
Soon will be the change I seek
so please stop those eyes that leak.
Give yourself a warm embrace
seek today, it's not a race.
You will find the good will come
hear it thrumming, hear it hum.
One more day now, yes you can
tomorrow? Today! that's the plan.

(original poetry copyrights apply. thanks ~Jennie)

This is the tattoo my youngest sister drew for me embracing my tiger Libra zodiacs.  I will one day get it done, when I have the money to spend on frivolities.  Until then, I have gratefully begun using some of the GoFundMe dollars toward the much needed and long overdue expenses I have not been able to attend to.  Thank you SO much.  Please continue to link, share, pin, tweet, etc.  There are still several unmet needs that desperately need attention.  I concentrated on the vehicle repairs and my medical health first.

GoFundMe