No Definite Plans

It has been a week since I discovered my financially solvent life was briskly coming to an end. I've had a week for the news to sink in and take hold. A week to conspire and plan. A week to work myself into a frenzy. It has been a week and I am firm in my believe "this" is exactly where I want and need to be right now. This temporary lull with no defined outcome is a gift. The gift of being flexible.

I love that I have also been given the gift of stability for three months. Being committed to tending one child versus five feels easy breezy. I am tied to life as I know it for three more months. Life as I know it, without the stress I have been feeling looks and feels very comfortable to me. When I'm comfortable, I make better choices. The very fact that I'm able to look ahead and know I'm in a spot where "flexibility" is my new reality, I feel at peace.

As I cull my way through the excesses of our world, I am looking at the bigger picture. I'm trying to pull "myself" out of much of the space within our home. There is a deep, quiet knowing that I must make room for change. The process of emptying cupboards, closets and drawers is cathartic.

It has almost been 29 years since I moved my little family out here. We arrived with very little. Our first home was furnished with the bare necessities of living and our basement was empty. Our lives were upended within the course of a month and at the end of it all, we had the basics in place to start our new lives with a fresh, new slate.

I don't have a great desire to wipe my slate clean at this point of my life but getting back to the basics, purging the excess and a fresh new beginning with the stability of the life I have built to this point feels right. So very right.

Mom is at a place in her life where I simply want to be able to pack up on a moment's notice and "be there". Everything is fine. There is no need for concern right now. But I simply want to be able to say "I can be there, if you want me to be". I haven't been able to say that before.

There was a short period in my life when I couldn't have cared less what my employer thought. I just picked up and left with no notice and came back when it felt right to come home again. I did that once. I did the same thing during my last holiday. I knew that was what I wanted to create in my life. Room to pick up and leave on a moment's notice.

I am almost there. Three more months. In searching for someone who could move into my life while I move out yesterday, I wrote the words "I could be out by the new year. Just think about it ..." That suggestion came from a recent conversation where we each laid out a glimmer of what we were thinking may lie in our future. A conversation where we said, "I'm just thinking about this", like it was a far fetched dream. I thought of my dream and their dream and the possibility of how we could work together and make both a reality.

My early morning brain to fingertip connection was all lubricated yesterday morning when I laid out the possibility that maybe, just maybe we could work together to make a change within our lives, while each of us held onto the real estate we have adopted as part of "us" and part of our lifestyle. I thought of how I never in a million years would have thought of a collaborative effort if we hadn't had that conversation where each of us spoke the words out loud and said, "This is what I'm thinking about".

I truly believe we have to speak about what we want to bring about. When we say the words out loud, they hold more power to redefine our world than when we simply sit still with them and hold everything inside. The same can be said about the words which have the power to bring us to our knees and hold us down.

Say the words out loud to someone you trust. Give your hopes and your wishes some hope by speaking them aloud. Take the power of the demons of fear, shame, secrecy and embarrassment away by sharing them in some way. Write, speak, sing it out loud. By working together, by sharing that which brings us up and that which brings us down we can change our own little world. When we change the way we look, feel and live our lives we change those around us.

I absolutely love this place where I am at right now. This place of "no definite plans" is empowering me to believe I can go and do and be wherever I need and want to go. By not making definite plans, the world looks and feels entirely different. Because I am starting to feel empowered again, I am also starting to feel like I have something to give again. The life of holding onto everything I had, not wanting to share my time, myself or invite people in was confining me in ways I didn't even realize.

The ability to dream is life affirming. I've said it before and I'll say it again. When I stop dreaming and believing I have the power to turn my hopes into realities, I stop living. When I stop living, my world becomes far too small.

This temporary state of a life with "no definite plans" is exactly where I want to be. It will give me what I need to find out where I want to go next.