Exhileration

I am so happy these days! I am barely able to contain the joy I have found within myself!! I know I sound like a total cornflake, but lately things have just been incredible. For a while there I was sad, lots of changes are happening. Friendships are metamorphosing, familial relationships and geographical locations of my family of origin are in a state of limbo, my dreams are so crazy I don't even like to try to remember them long enough to tell my Jungian therapist about them, and worst/best of all, is that my children are growing more independent each day.

*Forgive me for a moment while I talk/process through my writing*....I don't normally do so well with changes, which I think is odd since I was first an Army Brat, and then a teenager migrating from Mom to Dad, back to Mom and then to several other places before going to college, and a couple more before settling down and marrying Edward. Hmmm. Maybe that is exactly why I don't like change. I usually find myself resisting change, holding on to things & people even after the thing or person is not so beneficial to my well being. I believe one of the many seen and yet unseen benefits of living through the loss of Serenity, is that I have developed better coping tools to deal with change. There is no way to beg a dead person to come back to you. At least not any way that you could possibly expect it to happen, LOL! There is no way, really, to take death as a personal offense against you. Maybe that could be part of someones grieving process, but really, no. I guess never having lived through such a permanent type of loss before, specifically one that had nothing to do with being abandoned or dumped, rejected or unrequited, has always been a handicap for me in the world of intimate relationships. Because of all that, and because I feel much more attuned to my intuitions, or as my therapist calls it "the deepest part of my soul," I think I am better able to accept changes.

So, for a while here I have been riding a small wave of sadness, on top of the deeper wave of grief, and a whole lot of confusion and frustration at all the changes occurring in my life, relationship-wise. My littles chose, of their own accord, to go to school; Serenity finished her time here; Tammy moved; Philip is really coming into his own, separating more each day from the tether that began as our umbilical cord, my first attachment to anything outside myself since my own gestation. (where do my funny thoughts come from to turn into these words, LOL??) Several friendships are going through their own evolutions; and of course, the decision that was the start of all the changes: moving to Charleston. So I fully accept the emotional roller coaster I have been riding, and forgive myself for any mood swings.
And now Spring has arrived and I have discovered a new joy: Kayaking! I don't ever remember a feeling like pushing water out of the way and moving so swiftly along over it. I am sure it must be close to flying. I LOVE the sun on my body, the water in reach of my feet, the layered colors of the trees blending into one another as we coast or drift by. I love my husband, and I enjoy working as a team to navigate through the calm or choppy waters. Sometimes it seems impossible to move against the current, though we must in order to reach the goal; Sometimes we just drift along, enjoying the view, the breeze, the relaxed feeling of just floating along; we don't have a map, and if we did it would always change according to the whims of the moon and the wind; We peek around corners and try out different routes through the estuaries and mazes of the winding, flowing river. We never know where we may end up, until we get there. I used to absolutely despise that feeling of uncertainty, of being in limbo. I don't mind so much anymore; the rivers and the ocean feel more like home to me than any place I've ever been. And the journey is always worth the unexpected things we come across along the way. I always come away having seen something magical, or shared a quiet, sacred moment just between the Universe and me. Just like life. I love my life. I love my family. I am so thankful. Thanks to all that has ever happened to me, here I am today, exactly me. I love me.