words

as i was making my bed this morning, i got to thinking
of something i wish my counselor from so many years
ago woulda told me.

i went into counseling because my marriage was breaking up.
i thought i was there to learn how to cope with it all.

silly girl.

my marriage breaking up was just an outward sign of things
i had built that couldn't last on the foundation i had.

it wasn't about my marriage.
it was about my foundation.

if we're lucky, i think we all come to a time when that
foundation we built early on crumbles.

if we're lucky, it crumbles so much there's no standing
on it anymore.

because then, we have the push to recreate a foundation
that's true in strength, and right for us. it's not
a foundation that is built on other people's beliefs.

i wish someone woulda told me that.

i thought i had to learn how to deal with the guilt, the
fear, the anger, the resentment, the punishment, the loss,
all that divorce stuff...

and yes, of course i did.
and when you're in it, it's so consuming.
you don't really know that as you truly learn, it takes
you places.

i didn't really know, anyway.

if you open to it all, you start traveling.

i was going to say the traveling happened for me by accident.
but that's not true.
so much of my searching was intentional.
i had had enough of the way life was, and wanted to find out
what else it could be. but i didn't really know that in words.
i just knew that in some vague form of what was driving me.

words help me tho.

it's not like it woulda been a map. no one could give you one
of those.

but how encouraging would it have been to hear that it's okay
and you're building a whole new life and as you go along, you'll
just keep learning. and if you stay open it, you'll keep doin'
this the whole way. you'll keep shifting and changing and growing.

hmmmm....okay, maybe that woulda been scary.
maybe what i wanted then was to just feel happy and secure.
yeah. that's what i wanted. that's what i worked for.

silly girl.
don't you know it's everything?
happy and secure, sad and grief filled, wise and silly,
exciting and scary.

yeah, i'm still learning. but now i know....
if you're open and you want to grow, then you can handle what
comes your way. and if you handle it from your core of who
you are and who you want to be....then you're really living.

maybe what she shoulda done is bent down and whispered in my ear,
'ter, even tho you feel like you're dying right now, you just
stepped into life.'