deliberate meanderings

It's been 2 weeks since I took off my firefighter/ medic uniform for the (temporarily!) last time, 2 weeks of frantic painting/ weeding/ planning/ stressing/ laughing/ loving, and 2 weeks of having this kind of inner bloom. There's a big transition going on... beyond the move to Portland, the selling of the house, beyond the flow of time and work and love. Something is growing inside me, small, indefatigable, relentless, insistent, joyous and impatient all at the same time.

I'm not pregnant, at least not with a baby. While it's true that there are parts of me that long for a baby with such an incredible man, that chapter-- short of a miracle-- is over for me. I can't even put the proper words to what I feel. It's like a gentle yet insidious unfurling. Mostly joyous, and a little restless. I felt this same thing the late afternoon I stepped foot on Kathmandu soil 12 years ago; that same sense of hugeness and longing and possibility. More than anything, it's a coming home of sorts. A reclamation of something so deeply and potently feminine and fiercely sacred. I'm eager for what is to come, and perhaps a little terrified. Was it Nelson Mandela or Marianne Williamson (they are both given credit often) that said-- and I'm going to paraphrase-- that our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure?

Transitions, changes, growth. These all come with a sense of loss, as well, and I struggle to find the right places to bracket my feelings of leaving my dearest girlfriends, the straggly gawky project house I've nurtured and fought for the last 5 years, my job with BFD, and my sense of pride and independence at more than 5 years of single divorced mama-hood. For now, I just let the feelings come, and rather than fighting them as I have in the past (grief takes time and patience), I'm finding a way to accept and even thank them.

So-- thank you, insecurity and anxiety! I fully acknowledge that it is your job to challenge the soul lead by heart and love rather than logic and manipulation, and I accept your challenge. You give me the chance to show how brave I can be. Thank you, sense of loss! I have always treasured my friends, but you have given more clarity to the gems that they really are, and how a network of amazing women is just that-- weblike, more infinite than we could imagine, and powerfully connected. Thank you, anger and hostility! Luckily, I don't have to stare this one personally in the face every day or even every month, but you've taught me that the root of these things is pain and fear, and pain must be loved like a needy, hungry baby, and fear embraced without judgement. This has been a big one for me-- I've felt powerless over certain situations that affect my husband and kid(s), and if there's anything I hate with an absolute passion, it's feeling like I can't protect the ones I love most. It's been nothing short of revolutionary to discover through work and introspection that the root answer to this-- is actually Love, in the purest of forms. Love, empathy, and focusing on what I can effect right in front of me.

What we think, so we become. The simple act of walking into the world expecting-- and believing in!-- good (even in the face of being shown otherwise at times) is the most powerful lesson I've started to grasp through all these transitions.