I think I’m ready. Ready to start again. Ready to look at what I’ve let pile up around me and see building blocks instead of rubble. Ready to invest – my time, my effort, my heart. I think I’m ready, but I admit I’m scared.
I’ve spent the better part of the last year marking time and observing painful anniversaries. The end of this, the death of that, the first time without, the last time with . . . but no more. I don’t want to use my calendar to remind me what I no longer have. I want anniversaries I can celebrate. Things I’m proud of. Moments I never want to forget.
While I will always prefer knowing where I’m headed before I begin my trip, I just can’t stay in this place any longer. I’m perpetually bruised from stumbling around, but not moving forward. I understand growth can involve pain, but pain without progress is just pain. Something has to change.
So, happy anniversary to me. Not sure yet what I’ll be celebrating this time next year, but as God is my witness, I will be celebrating!
Dearest Leah, I am celebrating YOU—every day, but especially in this moment when you’re sheathed in the determination to poke tender shoots out and up into the sunlight of life-moving-somewhere-better. You ARE so much, you HAVE so much, both to give and to receive in this world, and I’m your #1 Cheering Section Fan as the Emergent Leah ventures into whatever’s next. Looking forward to seeing what the next year brings, and to a real celebration a year from now, all showered along the way with love and encouragement and accompaniment…
We aren’t supposed to know the next chapter in our book…and that’s part of the excitement of living, I hope. Time is a social concept that we need to obey for work and school and other social activities. When it comes to the heart, time is a mystery. Healing is (possibly) forever, and joy can’t be felt without pain. Holding you close and celebrating your anniversary with you!
You most likely needed the year to grieve the many losses which has helped you get to this point. Here’s to lots of reasons to celebrate and be joyful! You deserve celebration and joy!
A blessing for this moment from John O’Donohue
For a new beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us