As I settle into my new space, both internal and external, I have set myself a goal to give myself the space to rediscover myself. Coming off of a 25 year road-trip through marriage, motherhood, divorce and illness...including a move far away from the place I call home...I am presented with the opportunity to pause. To take a stop, look around, and gather up pieces of myself that I'd left behind.. As my friend Joanne put it..."You definitely deserve to get off at the next rest stop!"
My journey back to myself includes dusting off my yoga practice, walks on the beach, meditation and perhaps...a break from "making a living". Instead I am going to try to create a life.
I still have some vestiges of my former life that are attached to me...much like a trailer attached to the hitch. My 18 year old daughter made this move with me. She is also at a crossroads, having just completed the journey of primary education, she is now learning to be a student in a different way. We are working on redefining our relationship, to grow into two adults...at different stages in our lives...living and learning together - and apart.
This weekend she was away on a trip with her boyfriends family. The details of which will be a topic of another post. Her absence left me truly alone for the first time since we moved into our new beach side apartment.
I took advantage of a day off of work last week, added another and gifted myself a long weekend. The goal of which was to take a few steps forward in a new direction, and unpack a few more of the seemingly endless boxes. I am happy to report that I accomplished many of the items on the to-do list, leaving the most anxiety provoking for last.
That day has come, to gather my financial documents and get my financial house in order. Prior to the sale of my home, my finances were simply a matter of getting from point A to point B. I made some small random investments, but had no time or resources to actually make an effort to manage it.
With the sale of the house, I have cashed in my chips. And so today...I must gather up these random pieces and like a torn picture, piece them together to see what it looks like.
But I divert. While working my way to this task, a song came on Pandora. Barry White's "Never Gonna Give You Up". THIS SONG. So soulful, so damn sexy. I can remember the first time I heard it, in the den of a older neighborhood girl, whose name I've long forgotten.
So I started to dance, to move my body in a way I haven't in a long, long time.
And this is where I became reminded...of the young girl I once was.
My youngest daughter is a dancer. She is beautiful, and naturally talented. I put much of my limited resources keeping her in dance classes for the past decade. Well, she got her rhythm and flow from someone...and that would be me. Her dad is not too shabby either, having won a dance contest in high school.
When I was a teenager, I danced my heart out every opportunity I could. And something amazing would happen. People would stop me and tell me what a beautiful dancer I was. This happened every time I danced in a public place. Not random public places like the library! I mean places like the discos of the resorts we'd go to on family vacations, or weddings and parties. This started when I was probably around 14 years old.
This recognition became a source of pride for me. Not only did I love to dance, but apparently I was good at it and it showed!
All through my late teens and into my early twenties, I derived much joy from dance. I found it was the one time my mind truly took a back seat. When the music drowned out the racing thoughts and my body just obeyed the rhythm. Bliss. It was bliss.
The reasons I did not pursue dance as a young girl are pretty simple and pretty tragic for me. In the silence of my own mind and heart, I determined at 17 years of age that I wasn't pretty enough. I had a crooked tooth. Well, that wouldn't work! Besides, I rationalized...I would have needed to have had training as a young child. And with that decision made one day while standing outside on the grounds of my high school, my dancing was reserved for disco dance floors. But the passion I had for dance, never ceased.
So here I find myself, 52 years of age, brought to tears as I moved my body again to the rhythm. Naturally I have danced here and there over the years. But today, in this sacred and solitary space of reclaiming, I was literally moved to tears. And what I realized was that in this journey of putting back the pieces of myself...I will face this sadness. The realization of the parts of myself left to wither, almost forgotten.
Naturally, I am grateful that I have remembered, and you can bet I will make it a point to have music on in my home at all times, and will put everything down to groove as the music moves me.
So my message today fellow travelers is this. Sometimes, in the journey to rediscover ourselves, we will feel remorse for the parts of ourselves we neglected. As we rejoice in the discovery, we may also feel regret. Like meeting an old lover, and feeling things you thought you had stopped feeling for them. Yes, there is joy in the discovery, but there is also sadness and the tragedy, and the lost years. Let it be. Let the tears flow, and be glad to welcome yourself back into your own heart.
Now...about those financials!
xoro
