A New Chapter

This past week, I pilgrimaged back to a place of rebirth for me. I’m sure I need to actually write out and journal about this experience, but all I can write now is short sentences, partially formed, mysterious and vague…so I will let it be.

Driving down this road

so familiar, but today, strangely foreign.

I was a different person the last time I was here.

A girl when I entered. A woman when I left.

But who am I as I return?

Older? Wiser? Something…

My husband calls me by my old name and I fold.

I can’t keep these feelings locked away anymore…I am terrified to revisit this particular burial ground.

Have I really grown up? Have I really changed?

or am I still that little girl?

So many things have changed, yet some things remain…stuck…

but now I wonder..is that bad, or is it just what is?

A guy in a cafe, two tattooed tears running down his cheeks, toddler in tow, quips…”Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you planned.” You’re telling me, brother.

I’ve changed, undoubtedly, I’ve changed.

I’ve grown new roots, grounded in new soil.

But if I’m honest with myself, these ghosts of roots past still haunt me.

They have become more shallow, more hollow, but still hanging on.

I think it may be time to say goodbye.

I keep seeing signs, feelings, that tell me there is more to see, more to know about myself.

That if I don’t let go…

of these pursuits of unrealized expectations, these justifications, these what ifs and should bes

…there will be veiled hidden and locked up treasures, just out of my mind’s sight.

Beautiful, luminescent, radiant jewels…suspended.

I don’t see them rotting, just patiently waiting.

Mystical and magical, vibrating and humming…their healing and transformative properties pulsing and pressurizing.

Yes, it’s time to move on. Time to start looking up, to start looking around.

The present, lit with potential; expansive and boundless. A dreamer awakened. This is where I need to be. This is where I will find my new work. Here, now, these people, this love, is more than enough.

How wonderful!

My past, you have been a master teacher.

I thank you, I honor you, I cherish you.

You have carefully crafted me and I love me, so I choose to love you.

Be well, my friend.