Through The Looking Glass: Stuff Like Geese and God

It’s been three weeks since I moved into my new nest. It’s a quiet, clean modest apartment for Emma and I on a private lake sprinkled with patio boats and kayaks and so much damn peace I have to pinch myself to be sure it’s real. I love living here and I appreciate every little thing about it.

But before this peace there was chaos. My beautiful house I’d owned for 15 years was starting to show its wrinkles, much like me. Stuff was starting to break, and there was no extra money to fix it. I was eeking by, thanks hugely to a keen ability to juggle (quite impressive, really) and a family who always (always) showed up when I needed them, usually before I even had to ask. I needed a change, I was exhausted from holding on.

Making a change and flying the coop to a new nest took getting real and honest and swallowing my pride. It took intentionally setting my sights on how I wanted to feel when I woke up each day (serene), about how I wanted my environment to look (hopefully something with water nearby), about what was really important (my family, my health). Ultimately, it took saying goodbye to a home that I loved but was now eating me alive financially and emotionally.

Looking back, I know this: the peace I longed for during the chaos was with me all along. Peace hadn’t taken off on a vacation, it hadn’t abandoned me on the side of a dark gravel road, it hadn’t said “hey lady, I’m tired of waiting around for you, call me when you calm down a little.” No, Peace sat patiently, quietly nudging me and tapping me on the shoulder every so often to remind me it was there, that there was more than one way to live. It was me, myself and I who got temporarily lost in the pressures of life, and tangled up in trying to live up to the Joneses (whoever they are).

I liked saying I owned my house; it made me feel important, like maybe I had something a lot of single women didn’t. In the end, I had to look hard at that, and try to understand why I was so tied to the stuff. I mean, wasn’t just being me, all of my imperfections and quirks, enough? The answer I came to was “yes.”

My new chapter is simple. Daily, either before of after work, I sit to reflect by “my” lake that’s full of geese, turtles, and kayaks. To the naked eye, I look alone on the grass. But I’m not. Sitting right next to me is a power greater than myself who I call god, showing up as Peace, quietly reminding me that this is all mine as long as I choose it.