Hola Travellers,

From the porch this morning at 25 degrees, I spy with my little eye, a lovely sky…something about the crisp air and the muted shades of a near winter sunrise made me smile with my face and my insides…

I find myself today feeling very Day 1 of the rest of my life…and I started thinking about that phrase, “THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.” How many times have you heard that since adolescence…think about the rest of your life, how this will affect the rest of your life, what you are going to do with the rest of your life, have you thought about the rest of your life, can you do this the rest of your life, don’t ruin the rest of your life…

Seems like nonsense…In fact, I often feel that putting the words we say into typed font reveals their true ludicrousness. Or even deeper meaning perhaps. It sounds good to say it, but on the page, it becomes very, huh, silly human words. Or profound human words.  Do you know what I mean? As a reader and a writer, I feel that power of our language can only truly be revealed in print, because it feels captured like a butterfly specimen. We can see it and examine it’s beauty. Not that I’m saying we should kill and imprison butterflies, but think how hard they are to really observe flitting around wings flapping everywhere versus there on a page. Just like words. Speeches are great but there is something about the written word..I digress..

So the rest of your life seems to come into play after some kind of plot change in your story line. Things like: high school graduation, college graduation, trade school graduation, buying a home, marriage, divorce, the death of someone you love or even despise, both have a sort of release attached. The birth of a child is not only the rest of your life, but theirs as well, only you just have to REALLY worry about the formative years. Adopting furry children I think has a similar tone to it but a shorted ruction. Losing a job, or changing careers or considering changing vocation mid-life is a very big plot change where you hang in the rest of your life balance. Being incarcerated or released from prison, there’s a rest of your like quandary that most of us don’t ever consider. Bankruptcy and the hereafter of that choice.

It’s the ripples isn’t it. These things cause ripples in our lives. Ripples we can navigate but tsunami waves require a whole different set of navigational skills.

Do you ever think about the rest of your life? Because we don’t even know how long that will be, we can plan and hope, but tomorrow a bus with your name on it may run over you in a Target parking lot. Because I don’t know about you, but the most dangerous place to drive and walk in my home town is the Target parking lot.

Or disease may arrive and wipe out your life. Or another human may end your life. Or maybe you choose to end your life. Maybe you can’t even see past today or this moment to the rest of your life. The rest of your life may be so scary that you don’t even want it…

Back to tsunami waves. One of the hardest things to accept and move past is when life throws you a curve ball, and what you believed would always be true is no longer the case. The things we don’t choose tend to be the harder things to accept. Actually, sometimes our own choices end up being not what we imagined and impossible to accept. Because we all for some reason still want to believe that we should have everything we want, the way we believed we wanted it. When that fails, it’s jarring and puts most people into a tailspin for a period of time.

And the rest of your life feels open in a sort of falling from the sky kind of way. And it’s scary. I think it would be refreshing if people spoke more openly about fear, because I’m pretty sure most of our uglier behaviors are fear based and saying I’m scared isn’t weak, because honestly is never weak. Honestly and vulnerability are easily the strongest places a human can live. When I find myself scared, I now tend to say it out loud, I’m afraid, not sure to who, but I feel like acknowledging it is helpful. Like if I admit that to the universe something good happens.

I woke up this morning with a cat purring on my heart, which is now one the most surprising pleasant ways to awake from sleep that I never knew existed as a dog person. I’m trying to still sort out if I in fact said Rabbit Rabbit or dreamed that I said it, but I woke up with some sort of peace I haven’t felt in over a year. Actually I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this in my whole life. And it’s not because everything is how I want it to be or because all the fears are gone, it’s something else that I don’t have a name for right now.

And I thought about the rest of my life, what am I going to do with the rest of my life now?

Better, was the first word. I’m going to do it better, not because I’ve done badly, but I feel allied with myself more now and I feel like somehow in the middle of my play, I have some kind of beginning right here at my feet. I feel happy, which has alluded me most of my life. And who knows how long it will stay but I’m going to try and create an environment where it may grow instead of wither and die on the vine.

I told my therapist yesterday something has changed in me in the past two weeks…How’s that work? No idea…Being on my own has been weird but weirdly awesome. I’m in not rush to recouple, I’ve spent almost my whole life coupled and there is something exhilarating in the fear of singledom. And working thru the hardship of being alone has an odd reward. Peace. And not looking for validation from men has a huge role in that peace. Worrying about finding value from other people is exhausting. Or worrying about anyone else taking care of you when you can take care of yourself. We are all born to take care of ourselves.

Then I started thinking, maybe everything. I’m going to do everything  with the rest of my life.

Happy Friday Friends!!