Courage to Flow

Dear Friend,

Much time has passed since we were little girls, dressed in pink, at our 6th Grade graduation. We sang Lean on Me and Somewhere Out There as our class songs. We wore our beautiful leis and celebrated the achievement of finally leaving elementary school. After graduation, we danced  in the school cafeteria to Janet Jackson's "Control" and the Timex Social Clubs, "Rumours". "Shackles on My Feet," played too. We giggled. We jammed and we dreamed of the life we would lead. Here we are a couple of decades later and we're still alive. We're healthy. We're moving with the tide of life.

Our recent chance meeting brought together by a mutual friend was fated. I realized this as I listened to your story and your difficulty with your sudden change in relationship status. 27 years is a long time to dedicate to one person and to watch him throw it away so casually is upsetting. For you, I know it is devastating.

I want to tell you that I admire how you are persevering through the heart ache. We, as women, have that in common - the experience of love lost. If there was anything that I could tell you to see you through such a difficult transition is that how you feel today will not always be. Choose today to break through your cocoon into an even more stunning butterfly, brilliant with color and the freedom of wings. You, my friend, are on your way to a life that is more fulfilling than the last 27 years as you watch your children and grandchildren develop into their own magnificence.

I wish there were an easier way to get through the heartache but these lessons are conditioning your heart and soul for the life ahead of you. The strength you are exercising now to move on in life is a beautiful thing. When you look back on today, on this hard time, you will marvel at your courage. And one day you will bless the day that he walked out. It has granted you such a large amount of freedom to truly find your center again and realize the beauty you have inside.

Be easy like water, my friend, and flow with the tide of life
--never fighting against it
--never questioning where it is taking you
--never stopping its meandering journey


You can do this.
LIVE
LOVE
LAUGH

~NeenaLove~

Book Review: Wild by Cheryl Strayed

I just completed the book Wild (Oprah's Book Club 2.0 Digital Edition) by Cheryl Strayed. It's about a girl who starts on an 1100 mile hike across California and Oregon and through all the rough terrain in between.

...at last I found myself, bootless, in the summer of 1995, not so much loose in the world as bound to it. It was a world I'd never been to and yet had known was there all along, one I'd staggered to in sorrow and confusion and fear and hope. A world I thought would both make me into the woman I knew I could become and turn me back into the girl I'd once been. 

At the end of her journey, Cheryl evolves into a woman with the skills to take on the rest of her life. It is a beautiful memoir. Beautiful indeed. I believe this is the type of book I will write. I'm excited by the idea of turning my memories and thoughts into a published memoir. I am sure that my struggles and my epiphanies will be of use to many a lonely reader.

Up until late last night, I was at about 90% done with the book. I just could not keep my eyes open to finish off the final 10% of the book. So this morning I woke up super early to enjoy and relish the final pages of this wonderful memoir.

Cheryl's journey on the Pacific Crest Trail begins after having experienced the loss of her mother to cancer, the fracture of her family after her mother's untimely passing, and the demise of her marriage because of her own infidelities. If there were any a time for Cheryl to do some soul searching, it would seem that those three things I mentioned were ample material for her to embark on a path of enlightenment. Her path led her down (or up) a physically grueling hike across some of the most beautiful scenery in the West. I say "beautiful" because as I read the book, I googled all the images associated with the places she mentioned. The images ignites my sense of wonderment in relation to all the natural wonders on this beautiful planet.

I can certainly relate to two of the most difficult things that Cheryl endured. First is the demise of her marriage. I have blogged about my first marriage on many occasions. Second is the loss of her mother. Though Cheryl had a very nice relationship with her mother. My relationship to mine was littered with my selfish, unapologetic brashness of immaturity because of her old-school parenting. I wish I could take back so many years of me keeping my mother at a distance. But I know that she understands my frailties and can see everything from a much more grand vantage point.

One of the worst things about losing my mother at the age I did was how very much there was to regret ...The thought of my youthful lack of humility made me nauseous now. I had been an arrogant asshole and, in the midst of that, my mother died. Yes, I'd been a loving daughter and yes, I'd been there for her when it mattered, but I could have been better. I could have been what I'd begged her to say I was: the best daughter in the world.

I wonder if Cheryl's words are having an effect on me.

Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren't a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was. The radical aloneness of the PCT had altered that sense. Alone wasn't a room anymore, but the whole wide world, and now I was alone in that world, occupying it in a way I never had before.

I often feel like ALONE is a place I want to be. I want to be ALONE to follow my own paths and dreams and to bring my life into a peaceful alignment. I want to become the person I must authentically and genuinely be. As women, some of us take on the heavy burden of caring for everyone except ourselves. I no longer want to be that woman. But how does one UNTANGLE from all the burdens that have been heaped upon our shoulders? Cheryl quotes her mother:

"I never got to be in the driver's seat of my own life," she'd wept to me once, in the days after she learned she was going to die. "I always did what someone else wanted me to do. I've always been someone's daughter or mother or wife. I've never just been me. 

So who am I? I still don't know. I want to make choices independent of my "role" as wife or daughter or sister or friend. I want to make choices that fit who I am, authentically.

Needless to say, Cheryl Strayed truly has a gem on her hands. I'm thankful Oprah resurrected her Book Club. I look forward to our next read.

Utterly Alone

Sometimes I feel so utterly alone in the universe, like my mind is a jumble of thoughts that no one understands. I wonder if I alienate people by my thought process. Do I send people running in the opposite direction once I open my mouth? In my mind, everything makes sense but when it comes out of my mouth it turns into mush.

I long so much to be needed, the way a child needs a mother, the way a husband needs a wife. I thought that when we marry, we swear off loneliness forever, and yet here I am... feeling utterly alone. As tears roll gently down my face, sadness grips my empty belly, and I am enveloped in loneliness.

I wonder where the carefree girl I used to be went. I wonder where the laughter went; that loud and glorious laughter that used to be my trademark. Would the girl I was at 19 recognize the image in the mirror now? I'm so tired, so very tired. I just want to lay down somewhere, close my eyes, and let it all drift off into nothingness.




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