I’ve made some mistakes in my life. Some of them have been very big. I’m a bit of changeling, so it’s not surprising that I’ll bump my head a time or two and even crash and burn at least once. I don’t kid myself that I always do what’s best for me, but I do know that I’m a freaking survivor.
Sometimes I hate being a survivor. It seems so much simpler to be somebody who doesn’t take risks, follows the standard plan for life and otherwise stays in out of the rain. I tried it for a very long time. I felt like a caged animal. What other people find comforting and secure, I find suffocating and numbing. It wasn’t until after my second divorce when I took some time off to understand who I was that I figured out that I had to let go of the fairy tale. The Cinderella story for me felt more like Carrie’s trip to the prom.
I count my move to Louisiana as one of the most difficult journeys in my life. I don’t have any idea if I would have decided not to come if I’d researched more; I don’t know if I’d have known the questions to ask. It felt and moved along like it was of God, but I wonder sometimes if I forced it. More than likely this is one of those life lessons that I had to learn by being in a space where I couldn’t breathe. I literally sometimes can’t breathe when it’s hot here, and I figuratively feel trapped at times – like someone is holding me under a blanket and telling me I have to get used to this. It feels like marriage felt to me.
I know that one chess move does not lose a game. I do know it can set you back, or it can put you right where you need to be. And, honestly, I have learned a lot here. An astrologer looked at my charts and told me that starting in March 2012, I started a transit that would be very hard. She said it looked like it would have been a time where everything …. virtually everything …. would have been stripped away. She couldn’t have been more dead on. She says that it’s now over. It’s time for me to move on to my next adventure with some very important lessons in my backpack.
In order to remind myself of what I learned and maybe even share them with you if you need to hear them, I’ll recount some of my biggest lessons from Louisiana School:
I don’t know how my story will turn out. One day when I’m 98 I’ll look back and see how this chess move contributed to my game of life. I hope that it will look very different in hindsight. I know that I thought being single was the single most devastating thing that could happen to me, and it’s turned out to be an incredibly empowering and amazing way to live. I didn’t know what was best for me then, and I’m smart enough to know that I may not know what is best for me now. I don’t want to hurry up 98, but I hunger for that larger perspective.
My teacher Stacy has a mantra that she repeats when she’s facing something hard. “Accept what is,” she says. She says if you fight it, it just keeps you stuck. If you ‘accept what is’ and go with it, you can flow with it a lot easier. I think I’ll work with that one today. I’ll ‘accept what is’. Drop the struggle. Oh yeah, and I think I’ll meditate, too.
Great way to start my weekend. Thx!
Kirk
Sent from my iPhone
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Dear Sharon,
In the blurb you sent about your Travel Journaling Class for Camp Fest, you mentioned ’emotionally connecting with your audience’ or something to that matter. Well, you just did.
Thank you for writing this. It spoke to me in a very personal way.
Sincerely,
Deborah Dansante-White
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You are welcome! It’s the best way to connect!