New School Year, New Hopes

There's a big cardboard box in our living room filled with 5th grade books and activity kits. I'm still wondering how we've arrived at the 5th grade already, but I suppose every parent wonders such things. We never do seem to get an answer, but we cherish the moments with our kids and feel a little sad when they've passed. We celebrate their climb to adulthood but we mourn the gradual loss of childhood just the same. Truthfully, we hope that they can hold onto a few sparks of childhood wonder, because we never really outgrow those sparks and they will enrich our lives beyond measure

if we don't give the world permission to steal our joy. 

I'm a little bit afraid, as the new academic year looms a couple of weeks ahead of us.  I'm afraid that the character defects that I've been working on for the past several years will continue to dog me, preventing me from reaching the fullest potential I can both personally and with regard to my family. I'm afraid that I won't have enough time to squeeze in all the things I want to do with our daughter, in these years when urgency seems suddenly to be calling and every minute is like a rare jewel that will self destruct at some point, leaving only a memory of its luster and sparkle.  I'm afraid that I won't be able to teach her well, that I'll fail in my responsibilities to our homeschool groups. I'm afraid and melancholy over some major changes that are on the horizon, such as our girl's best friend since she was 5 years kid moving far away.  There has been so much moving around here. I long for the constancy of a more root cherishing place. I don't feel like I was designed for all of these good byes and all of this being left behind in the dust of other people's see you laters. My heart has broken several times this week over this last item. I know that things will work out, but I also know that it will be hard, and for more folk than just us. But I worry most about my girl.  

After we get home from our yearly trip to Massachusetts (bliss!), we'll begin the school year in earnest. This week, I'll clean our school room up some and try to organize the place so it's clean and inviting instead of schoolroom post apocolypse. As well, I'll start taking forward steps toward living life better, a day at a time.  

Breathe in love, breathe out peace.

Circles and Tribes

I sat in my long white car at an intersection not long after I returned to Florida, an aching in my heart threatening to push me into the abyss of depression again. The sun was shining down in magnificent rays all around me, the brilliance of late summer showing off her last hurrah before the Autumn equinox. All I could feel was sadness and suddenly I was absolutely not okay with that. 

"Help me," I whispered into the air around me, calling out to Diety, to God as Father, Mother, All. "Just help me, please."

I've realized, in the days following, that I need a tribe. I need to give and to receive, to dance and dream, to celebrate, to sorrow, to ritual with strong and wild women.  I understood this very clearly while I was visiting my home state. While reveling in the belongingness of home, I kept receiving messages to this effect, as well as messages that where I am is good, that life is progressing as it should and that if I engage with it fully things will be beautiful. I believed this in my soul because it felt like truth so very deeply. I felt the truth of it in the cells of my body, through the spiraling coils of DNA that help make me who I am. It felt right and wonderful. 

I returned home to rediscover that I am deeply in love with my husband. I found an indescribable joy in my animal family and in the bond that all of us, human and non-human, share as a loving, living unit. And still, I understand that I need a tribe of women to celebrate the turn of the year with, to dance in the moonlight with, to be sisters among. 

The depression arrived as it always does, suddenly and with vicious teeth. But I know it more intimately now; I understand that I'm not tending to my soul properly, and that sometimes spirit sickness is simply a way our souls communicate to us that change is necessary. 

No fear.

1. 
   

Last Full Day in MA

It's hard to believe it's been nearly two weeks already. Two weeks of home. Two weeks of being someplace where I know who I am, where I feel the embrace of the land around me, where I know with definite certainty that there are people who love me. The only thing missing has been the Hubby and our animal family; they would complete the picture perfectly. 

I have spent the past year, since last year's trip home, trying once again to find my footing in Florida. I've done it by putting on the face everyone wants to see, by throwing myself into the business, homeschooling, and, here and there, into creative endeavors. There have been amazing, magical, and very blessed moments. Lots of them. But there have been dark ones as well. I have wrestled long with the dark times, and I can feel them whispering to me even now, when I'm trying just to focus on having a nice day, not to ruin our last complete day here with sadness and dread. It's difficult. 

We have tried hard to make it in Florida, and we have, to a certain degree, been very successful.  Over the last year, life has grown more complicated. We've always had dysfunctional people around us in our business, but as we've grown, we've experienced more the harmful effects of these people with respect to our personal lives and how much we can grow the company. And these people are in our home constantly, their energy mingling with the peaceful atmosphere I strive to keep in our home. I'm tiring of the work it takes to constantly clear out the negative. I don't want our business life this close to our personal lives anymore, but I don't see a division in the near future.  I'm tired of people I don't want in my personal space working in our yard, hacking at trees I want left alone, invading the one bit of private space I personally had left. There is nowhere to run to anymore to escape the madness. I can't even enjoy my morning coffee in peace anymore because people start coming to our house before the sun peeks over the horizon. 

South Florida is a place of transience. I seriously doubt the integrity of most construction contractors anymore, as a large part of our current financial stresses have arisen out of the dishonesty of the contractors we've been dealing with. Everyone here seems anxious to run over everyone else so that they can have more; there is very little loyalty. I feel this in the people who work for us as well. 

I didn't realize until I came back home to MA how much I've been raising walls to cope with life. Slowly, over the past two weeks, I've been able to return to myself, and to realize that I hate what Florida is turning me into. I'm not a cynical, bitter person. But I've been feeling a lot more like that over these past few, difficult months.  I have to go back tomorrow. But, aside from my Hub, dog, cat, and various animals, and the homeschooling that we need to dive back into, I don't want to. Not at all.