homesick. heartsick.

Some say transition and change is hard.  I think the aftershock that is felt in the space of calm, quiet and settling is harder.  So do my girlies apparently.  Today I came home to finding them ‘moving’ to each other’s rooms.  They managed to move a desk that is bigger than both of them put together.  Everything else was in a state of migration.  I knew they were proud of themselves yet hesitant to see how I’d react.  I tempered my response sensing what they both were thinking and feeling.  I shared how much I appreciated their enthusiasm and initiative yet how eager I had been feeling to finally get to repaint and decorate my own room and how seeing their rooms in such a state of disarray left me feeling like that eagerness just slipped into hopelessness.  I mostly felt a little sad that all the love and energy poured into making their spaces feel like home to them (or perhaps me) felt for naught.  My oldest shared that what was really going on for her was homesickness for the homes and heartsickness for the people she had left behind.  Moving rooms was a way of staying in motion so she wouldn’t have to feel the discomfort of settling away from places and people she longed for.  Oh how I can relate.  Sometimes I wish I possessed the power of a genie in a bottle so I could twitch my nose or snap my finger and go back.  But to where?  ...and to what?  ...and to whom?  Time has moved on for everyone just as it has for us.  What she remembers is an experience in time that is frozen in her memory.  She described a hole inside of herself...deep and hard to fill.  I know that hole.  It’s what propelled me forward onto a spiritual path that those closest to me severely questioned including myself at some point in time.  But for all it’s negatives, snipping and clipping away the things I held so near and dear to my heart opened up breathing room for an experience of the Divine that I dare say few humans have fully experienced.  That’s a hard truth for me to admit as it calls into question my decision to leave.  In the end I knew that my path had shifted and the one calling me the most at my point of departure was that of partnership and parenting.  My husband and my daughters challenge me daily to a fuller acceptance of my humanity and a deeper love that is selfless and unconditional.  I have a long way to travel on this current path I am on.  But as I learned in the discipline of daily meditation and spiritual practice, resisting the urge to run and turning toward that which my heart yearns to know and understand the most leads me to the kind of intimacy and connection my heart longs for.  I call out for the wisdom to be still when her desire to run makes me want to don my own tennis shoes.  I summon the virtues of fortitude and strength to stay put when my internal tendency is to bolt at the slightest discomfort and unrest...to turn toward her with a stillness and embrace that eases the ache until she develops the resources to do this for herself.  Thank you.

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