This morning, I woke up with thoughts of relationships of the courting kind. There are those of us who have them and those of us who don't. I'm sitting on the side of "I don't have 'love' in my life, but I think I want to explore it,” so my awareness is being drawn to those who seem to be of a similar circumstance or age and drawing new love into their lives. I look at those people like an outsider and wonder "What do they have that I don't? What are they doing that I am not? What do they have that attracts love, romance and partnership into their world?"
In the quietness of my morning, as I made my bed around our cats, the answer came to me. They have a willingness to do the work which is required to make a relationship not only come to life, but to keep resuscitating it time and time again. Relationships are a full on commitment. I know without a doubt that I am kind of lazy that way. Or at least I have been for a long while.
I have been on my own for over nine years. Nine has been a number that shows up a lot in the cycles within my life. It has been nine years. It is no wonder I am feeling restless and starting to wonder again.
I spent the initial part of the mourning period after my last relationship ended regrouping. I did it in a rather productive fashion that I wouldn't mind recreating one day. I fixed up the house, the yard and myself in the process. There is much to be gained by painting a fence that doesn't end. I still remember what part of the process I was living as I glance at different sections of our fence. It was a lot of work. Finding "me" after I had started identifying myself as part of a couple was life affirming. I survived. Again.
Then I found my friends. I reached out and became available as a friend. It started with me feeling the need to be surrounded by friendship. Then as I told my story, others started telling me theirs. It was groundbreaking work. There was a strong foundation being rebuilt. There is strength in numbers. We are not alone.
I found myself searching for my roots. I collected family memories, organized them and put together a few family history/memory books. I started reconnecting to family and discovering myself in January of 2008. I amassed and bound my last set of family memories into a book by October of 2014. I spent almost seven years immersed in the process of feeling like I belong to this thing I call family. My root system is strong and stable and I believe I can now weather any storm.
I feel like I've been wandering aimlessly over the course of the past few years. The honeymoon period of finishing my last book project lasted well into the following year. That was followed by a crash of a subtle and not so subtle kind. I was exhausted —Physically, mentally and emotionally.
Then came the identity crisis. If I was not part of a couple or a survivor of a broken heart or the collector of family members or the mother of dependent children or good at the job I was doing, who WAS I?
Life happened and placed me right back into the heart of my family and family home over my summer holidays. I wasn't standing on firm ground before I found myself there but once I was in the thick of family, I became strong again. I knew what I could do and I did it. I found a vital piece of myself within a crisis of minor proportions. I was finding strength within my weakness. I was still a little broken and fractured, but I had my root system. I was still standing and I had weathered a long lasting winter.
I didn't know where I was going (I still don't), but my strength is within my roots and my future will come from allowing spring to come into my life.
This must be where this feeling of adding "new life" into my world is coming from. After my last long-term relationship ended, I felt so broken I wanted to leap right back into love and heal my heart that way. The longing was real. I was so lonely. I'm glad I took the long road back into finding my way back "home.” I am longing for a deepness within my world these days. It very well may not be within the confines of a relationship. I believe it will come from the deepness in my soul, when I become still and quiet and content in the life I am living.
I feel it coming. I don't know what it is. But change is in the air.
