My daughter and I just got back from an incredible vacation. The trip was supposed to be just a quick four day weekend, but turned into a five day trip. Little did I know that I needed that fifth day. Why? Because it became a day to not rush, to be free to say, we have all the time we need. Our whole weekend was like that. No rushing around trying to arrive somewhere on time, no stress trying to keep each other entertained. Simply just enjoying ourselves. The further into the weekend we got the more I relaxed and just let myself recover from a very busy first half of the year. I meditated and thought about how my year was going.
My year started with getting my heart broke and realizing that I needed more out of the relationship that I was trying so hard to save. Yet the truth is when I finally let go, I got happier. But it was not right away, in fact I continued to fight for that person for way to long. I’m tired of chasing someone, of begging for their love and attention. I’m tired of working so hard to give someone everything I want hoping that they would somehow understand that it is those things I need in a relationship. I am going to say this, I was so wrong to think that someone would even come close to guessing that. How unfair of me to even hope or think that. No that is not the way a relationship works. It is time for me to realize that. I need to fix my relationship with myself first.
So I began a journey that I am loving. Learning about myself. Who am I? I am kind, loving, and while I’m not some knockout my internal beauty is empowering. I am magic, I’ve said it a million times. All I have to do is remember that power and and love and let it shine through. The vacation helped me to tap into that. I walked around with a ton of very different people and for the first time in my life soaked in the love and acceptance of everyone. It was as if for the the first time in my life I actually feel recharged. Happy and content.
The other thing that has truly helped me during this journey is the grief group that I have been going to. I have learned so much and have decided that I will be starting my own. This is what I know I am supposed to do. One step at a time but I will make this work. This weekend has just allowed me to be who I am and realize that I don’t have to just write one book but both and still be and do what I dream of. It never had to be one or the other, I can and will write both. This helps me just walk that journey and really welcome in what I have learned. It is time to not chase a man but chase my dreams. That is where everything I need is. Chasing those dreams and letting the world see who I am. No more hiding.
The vacation has also taught me that it isn’t always heartache and sadness, nope sometimes it is just the blues and the blues never last forever, as long as you call them out. As long as you are brave enough to simply sit and face the sadness and heartache, you will eventually have to start looking for the blues but you won’t find them. Because you did the work to get through them, the work is hard as hell. It’s not fun and yes there will be tears. But I have learned that each tear, has healed me, the scar of pain is still there along with the missing of the person. But tears are what heal and being brave to face that is what makes me “the strongest person I know.” Life will be full of things that give us scars. We can try to avoid those things but life just doesn’t work that way. The scars make us beautiful. I have watched so many different documentaries lately on monks and how to be happy like them and I realized something, the monks that I find so smart and amazing have spent many years alone to find peace. They tend to stay in solitude and speak on rare occasions. I always ask the same question at the end of the show. How? How can they actually know these things if they stay alone all the time? It’s like they know the answers, but they may not know or understand the questions fully if they have no experience of the life. I have no answer for those questions. Maybe they just are not talking about those experiences. Maybe they prefer to keep those wounds to themselves. I just don’t think that was why I am created. Not to hide and protect myself from those experiences but to fully have the experience of humanity. After all, what is the sense of being a well with water if no one knows you have water?
The Journey of a Lioness 