I am not certain what the magic formula is for this feeling of contentment I am feeling these days, but I like it!
I think the blue sky and sunshine are making the difference. Soaking up good old natural Vitamin D in the way it was intended to be absorbed is the greatest mood builder of anything I know.
I remember days when my lows felt lower and my highs felt higher. I could park myself on the front doorstep of our home and simply breathe. I would gaze up into the infinite sky above me and I felt very, very small. It put my troubles into perspective.
I could be gazing at a blue sky, stars or the moon. I was always gazing upward.
One time I was “running away from my troubles within my marriage. My only means of transportation was a bike.
I hopped onto that bicycle and headed north. I had no idea where I was going until I got there.
My compass was set on a park by the river that had brought nothing but joy and happiness into my life.
There was a hill I tobogganed down as a child, apark where I got to know my (then) future husband. There were alking paths where I walked with a friend. There were playgrounds where our children played. It evoked the memory of Dad driving “this close” to the river when I was a child and feeling like we were in grave danger, but knowing without a doubt, we were safe.
I cycled to my destination and found a spot among the trees at the bottom of that toboggan hill. I lay down on the grass and gazed up into the starlit night.
My troubles felt smaller. The universe told me this moment would pass. It didn't tell me the answer but it did alleviate the stabbing pain in my heart.
Mantras from Alanon meetings flooded my thinking and I knew they were right. Hand this one over to a higher power. Let go and let God.
I looked upward and let my troubles drift off into the sky above me. I let them go.
Eventually, I hopped back on my bike and headed home. There was nowhere else to go. I was very pregnant with my second son at the time and I had left my nine-year-old son at home with my husband. Reality awaited me. Our house was not a home in those days. I remember sitting on the front doorstep of that house and wanting to find my way back to the home I once knew.
I may have been wishing on a star because that one small wish came true.
Our marriage unraveled before, during and after the birth of our second son. Dad died days after I walked out of that house with my two children, with nowhere to go.
I walked through those days and it is all pretty fuzzy. But I remember one thing. My sisters came home to see our dad and instead they stumbled across the-mess-that-was-the-end-of-my-marriage. My husband refused to leave our house and I didn't know (for sure) which way to turn. And my sisters said one thing. They said, "You should move back home..." And I did.
I packed up my children and came back to my roots. That was 27 years ago.
I made a wordless wish upon a star and it all came true.
I still gaze upward when I feel lost. I always find solace in the universe I can't see beyond. Because I know the answers lie there, somewhere. They are simply easier to see when the sky is blue and the sun is shining.
Thank you, sun. You have broken through the clouds and life feels good once again. It always comes back to this. The cloudy days don't last forever. Just keep looking up. The sun will shine again. It always does.
