The Rabbit Hole

  As I sit here, I find myself constantly asking "can you believe I am in this place? and "can you BELIEVE I am in THIS place?" My life is filled with so much goodness and blessings that sometimes it is hard for me to just relax into them. At other times, the details of my life, that same one I pinch myself for starring in, makes me weepy. In a sad "isn't this enough, haven't I been through enough?" kind of way. To the first part, I am blessed. I know this. I have far fewer worries than most and my hardest days now, are the things that made up the fantasies of the woman I once was. I try to store those moments up. The lucky ones. To not allow myself to float right through them. It is hard to stay grounded sometimes. I have become so good at leaving myself. Skimming the surface of a thing and to never go wading in further. To keep on the shallow end of the good things. 

  Other times, the hard ones. When my heart gets broken by life and the very act of living it, I allow myself a lapse. I take it in fully. I dive into the deepest cavern and explore all the slimy dark spaces. I give myself over to the "what if's" and "worse case scenarios." I remain in the depths of that dark coldness until I fear my lungs will burst. Until I have taken the full measure of a thing. I must know it all. And then, after I have faced the worst that could happen, I let it go. I either accept it or I do not. If it is changeable I set about changing it. If, for some reason the odds are impossible, I still try. I try, until I cannot ignore whatever the thing is and I give it a nod. I learn to live with it. 

  Now, why I rush over the good and store up the bad, I cannot say. Maybe I am still that lost little girl who knows more of sorrow than sunshine. I do not know. This is a new thought to me. I must explore the reasoning. I received a message recently. Kind words and descriptive sentences. Which proclaimed that I am very self aware. Part of me tried not to read that as self absorbed, but really this all started as me letting ME free. So, there must be an element of that involved as well. We all wish to be known. It is the essences of our beings. We catalog and dictate the facts of our lives. We explain and explore, reaching out to others. Hoping to like the reflection of ourselves that they mirror back to us. 

 It is in that vein that I started writing. I am so glad I did. It has changed me. And I am of the firm belief that there is always room for improvement. A higher self to aspire to. I had a counselor tell me once that I had an over developed sense of justice. That my right and wrongs were black and white. This was certainly true. I was ridged in my expectations of myself and others. It is a hang over from those early years in which my character was formed. I have learned to soften those lines. It is fine to bend in the wind. I am learning. 

  So, back to the beginning. Why do  I not allow myself to fully experience the wonderful things in my life? I remember the first time I saw a flash of it. The life I could have. I was sitting with my feet in a giant pool of warm water. On a private beach. Watching as the sun appeared and made the deep sky blue. It was a calmness. I took in the view of the ocean, beyond that pool and I was mesmerized. To realize that it existed. That place of sun and sea and white sand and calm. It was real. And I was there. I remember the awe of it all. The warmth on my skin and the deep peace that came with it. I was alone in that moment. Completely owning myself. Not hiding or running, simply being. Of course the moment passed I had things to do. We won't talk of those here. But it was a crazy wonderful and dangerous time that changed my life's direction once more.

  Today, sitting in a quiet hotel suite, perched above the Gulf of Mexico, I am there again. Fully in myself. Taking ownership of the entire real estate that makes up me. I am struck by the fact that I have been here so few times in my life. Not geographically. I have been here a dozen times. No, here within myself. Both mind and body, fully engaged with life around me. I am not making lists of things to be done at home, or going over half remembered conversations looking for loose threads to pull. It is a wonderful thing and bittersweet. Acknowledging the present reminds me of all the times in the past. And there I would go if I let myself. Down the rabbit hole of other times. I will not be coaxed. It is a fools journey. No I cannot go back. Time only moves forward and if we do not take the wheel, well we will surely run aground. It will get away from us, this life.

  I am far from the first to say it, but I will repeat it none the less. Own yourself completely. Live up to the edges of who you can be. Take up all the room that makes up you and move into the possible. Life is changing. Ever changing. Move forward.