gratitude.joy.sorrow.sadness.peace.breath

2010, you are almost gone and i am bit shocked. bit shocked that such an intense, maybe the most intense year of my life is closing. amazed at 2011. it feels full of hope, joyfull, unlimitless, full of possibility.

how did i get to this place?

starting 2010, i knew it was to be a hard year, intense, full of difficult roads. looking back, i am so grateful I had no idea of how hard, how difficult, how intense. truly grateful.

and they always say the hardest times are the most powerful etc etc etc and damn but is it true. i am wee bit sad to close the door on this year. this year that broke me open, spit me out, threw up everything in the air. the year i risked it all, we risked it all, made every change, followed in complete blind faith and nothing more. gave up a lot to start anew, thinking it was not for us but him and later realizing it truly was for us all.

in the midst of joy being so very tired, tired of being tired, tired of working at all hours. being hungry and wishing for more food. wondering how where why would the money come for food, house, expenses. and giving up so many things just to be able to keep what was the minimum and what we had to have to live. truly learning what you need to exist and all that is above that which is truly most of our lives. and being awed time and again, when just, just enough showed up, sometimes feeling purely out of thin air. grateful for the kindness, dear kindness of strangers, friends and family. living so deeply without the things that most feel what life is made me truly stop and figure out what I needed and what was the important, deep life stuff. i learned a lot, i changed a lot, i gave up a lot. I still miss stuff, sometimes I still ache for the things I cannot have. Mostly, I am okay. feeling that truly nothing was left but what was in my soul, my heart, my being. plunging ahead and taking/making those major shifts without any clue of what may lay ahead.

the awe and sometimes sadness of watching them grow, develop, bond with each other, stumble, fall hard and leave the baby/toddler years and realize they are all farther ahead. it is easier, truly it is easier. and harder in some other weird way. but the day to day physical aspects are easier on my very fatigued, adrenal fatigued body.

those adrenals. i should devote a space to them. they are so sad, and so worn out, so depleted. sometimes I feel they will never recover, i will never recover, never have that energy that seems to define me, back. it is debilitating. heart wrenching. exhausting. to want to do, to wish to hope and then to watch your body just physically fail you over and over. and then to watch your mind fail, to forget, to not hold on to details that used to be so easy. it is hard when your body and mind are so clearly wiped to remember to do this, that, this that, take that, drink this, remember this that etc. the irony makes me laugh, many times actually. it would be funny if it were not so intensely painful.

and then, the wise women who lifted me. one, so casual we met, yet i knew right away, i sensed her energy, her spirit, her life force. met up with her again this summer after working together via email and phone. the sunlight and air wafting through the aspen trees, looking up at the light and letting it go. yesterday as I was reflecting on things, I realized how much letting go of things and opening for new things in the forest among the aspen trees was so profound. i am deeply grateful.

and then taking a chance, asking for help, asking for an opportunity. and getting it and looking back and seeing how many opportunities are still coming from it. attention, breathe, stillness, accepting, and living with what you have instead of wanting for something else. giving myself a break and the permission to rest, to breathe, to relax.

such a year. a big move, business shifts, a new home, new school, new people, new places, in many ways a new life. yet the same life, just shifted. shifted to be open to new possibilities, new positive energy, new life force. new peace, new rest. open. willing.

every day I am grateful to God for this magical place we moved to, this house, this house that somehow we are so very lucky to live in. the little birds that chirp all day and the seemingly hundreds that live on our property. a new place where my children are thriving instead of withering. where i feel possibility and love and acceptance and support. where they are at ease instead of angst, where their bodies can breathe and be quiet. where they are healing and growing.

gratitude. grateful that for the first time ever i think i set goals in 2010. personal goals, family goals, business goals. not all were met, but most. but more important, it set a different path in motion. it opened up the possibility of new possibilities for me. it caused a shift in me, set me of a different path.

my word for this year did not come until late August. it is "transform" it will keep being my word I think until the end of summer. somehow the school year calendar resonates in a different way with me and it seems the right time for a word.

thank you 2010 for all that you were. 2011 i will be glad to meet you where you are.