It Can't Always Be the Same: Rocking the Light AND the Dark and Birthday #46

Lauren & Mallory 2006

Feeling a little verklempt this morning and I'm learning to embrace these melancholy moments because life (the spiritual journey it is!)  is embracing the light and the dark.  You cannot have one without the other.   The dark has frightened me for years and I fought it off to no avail.  I'm learning to embrace my once sworn enemy and welcome it with curiosity and kindness.  This is no easy feat yet the dark makes the light, oh so much sweeter.

I walked the dogs in quiet this morning and in atypical fashion for late July in Louisiana, it was a cool morning.  There are several things on my mind this morning.  I saw that the moving truck that was packed yesterday with my neighbor Lauren's belongings was indeed gone.  She is headed to New Orleans for nursing school.  She babysat for me for the last 9 years!!  I was pregnant with Mallory when we moved into this house in 2005.  Lauren started off as a mother's helper and ended up driving my kids around, the ultimate in a mother's trust.  Lauren is going to rock nursing school! Look out New Orleans.

Katie and Riley 2005 - Ballon Festival

My niece, Katie, will be induced tomorrow to have her first baby.  She was one of Riley's first babysitters.  She was in the room when Riley was born.  It doesn't get much closer than that.  But there is always dark and light.  As in many families, things happen and we don't get along for a spell. Katie and I have moved through that and are on the other side.  I can't wait to meet Baby Boston.  Entering motherhood is an awesome and life changing event.  For me, it was the beginning stirrings of my consciousness journey.  Your children can evolve you like no other. (Thank you Dr. Shefali Tsabary!)  Katie will rock motherhood and be oh so fashionable while doing so!

My kids are starting back to school next week.  Riley will be entering sixth grade and Mallory, the third grade.  I dropped Riley off for her back to school party last night.  She had a purse with money and a phone in her possession!  My stomach turned as she ran off and I drove away.  Middle School.  I am learning to let Riley be who she is and navigate the highs and lows of the brutal middle years.  This is no easy task.    I have to let my own insecurities not be pushed as I'm privileged to listen to hers.  Thank you social media for adding to the drama.  Middle School and puberty were easy enough to navigate before.  Yet...Riley is going to rock Sixth Grade!

On my walk, it hit me that my forty-sixth birthday is in two days.  Birthdays can be like middle school for me, quite the booger.  In the past, reality never met my expectations and I had to learn to adjust.  (I do love birthdays on FB though - it's the bomb!)  I have learned to lower the expectations, take the day in my own hands and plan it myself.  You can't wait around for other people to do what you want to have done in your own life.  I was so caught in the muck of fear that I could not even think of alternatives much less act on them in the first half of my life.

Yet that change and adjustment in my expectation of birthdays (and life!)  has lead to gratitude for the little things:
Like a crisp morning in July! Peace and quiet and birds singing on a dog walk.  The girls sleeping in so I can write.  Annie curled up next to me snoring and making me smile.

I don't have delight every day in these things and that is okay too.  Sometimes I want to cry during my morning dog walk.  That is part of life too.  Embracing that "dark" that comes and being curious about it is making all the difference in my life.

Today, I'm especially thankful for people who have come in my life, and become such a special part of it either by birth or by luck.  I love you guys!  I'm so happy for your new adventures.

I'm grateful that life changes and evolves and I am learning to embrace it instead of being scared by it.

Namaste.

Katie and I on Christmas Day 1984