Two years ago today I took a step on a short journey.  The immediate one was to take my(then) husband’s truck and drive, alone, the three hours to my mom’s.  Some might say, “Big deal.”  However that was the first, and most necessary, step in taking my life back.  I won’t go into all of the things that went into that very large, terrifying and monumental decision.  Suffice it to say it was not easy, nor were the ensuing months while we dissolved our relationship.

Words are interesting.  I can’t help but reflect on the past at certain times of the year but what is also interesting is another definition of the word reflection.  In mathematics a reflection is a change in direction along one axis: a transformation.  More than once during those first months as I pulled the scattered pieces of who I once was back together my family remarked that the old me was back again.  I could see where they were coming from, in some respects.  I definitely found my spark again, my spunk, my irreverence, and my joy, to say the least.

Still, I was more.  When you stab a spade through a pool of water you disturb it, unsettling the surface, creating currents and eddies and muddying its clarity.  The spade leaves with its blade smeared with mud.  The pool settles, sediment drifts to the bottom, and in time everything looks as it once was.  Except deep below everything is different, forever change by the experience.

That journey two years ago was, in some respects, a turning back.  It was a return to myself but it was always a turning forward, and a huge moment of growing into the woman I’d been held back from becoming.

I examine my reflection sometimes and search for the vagueness at the edges that will betray that it all is a dream.  Thankfully, so far, no amount of pinching has woken me so I’m hoping I never do.  I love who I am.  A very dear friend told me a few weeks ago that she describes me as “smarter than most and one of those people who knows how to make what she wants happen.”  I blushed when she told me that and didn’t exactly know what to say beyond accepting the compliment.

Two years later I don’t know if I’m on a journey and frankly I really don’t care.  So many worry about the destination and forget about everything that happens along the way.  I know I’m living life and enjoying every second of it.  My world is full of devastingly beautiful souls that bless me with their friendship and love.

I think this shall be the last time I mark the passing of time in reference to that last chapter in my life.  I’ve spent more than enough time  crying, venting, and reflecting on all that happened during it.  It’s time to smile into the wind and cherish what I have now.

Over the past 30 days I’ve traveled across five timezones and though I’ve been home for sixteen days there are times when I wake and don’t know what time it is.  Those same thirty days witnessed my first celebration of Christmas single, saw me sleep through the departure of 2010 and arrival of 2011 and an unmarked but felt five month landmark of being alone and the seven month one of leaving my marriage.

I’m living life, day by day, living, not waiting, not holding on for a sunnier day or a warmer breeze.

The lake is frozen; if you’ve never lived with a body of water like one of the Great Lakes ever on the horizon I don’t know that this will make sense to you.  I drive past that sheet of ice and feel the impending promise of Spring.  Since I’ve lived here the lake hasn’t frozen until January, when the coldest days of winter lock us down.  But the days grow longer, the sun’s rays find me a little earlier in the morning, and I look at that great expanse of ice and feel anticipation build.  Soon it’ll warm; soon, the water will surge up beneath that thick sheet and Mother Nature will burst free with a heave of great slabs.

And soon I’ll be sailing again; something that is one of a few a constant, bright golden threads in my mind.

Even so, even as winter holds us all fast in its grasp with long dark nights I found myself standing at a moment of enlightenment.  One of those fractions of a second when you mind spins into high gear and time slows.  And you’re given the chance to realize that you’ve two choices; either to maintain course and find yourself in irons, dead in the water with no progress, or change tack and fill your sails with a new wind, one that will race you into new territory.

I’ve thrown the tiller.  Changed course.  Loosed the sheets and watched the canvas of my life billow and fill with a potential that thrills me to the edge of fear.

But I’m not afraid.  Because if there was a precipice to tip over it happened without my permission, and before I could say that I’d fallen I was seeing the truth of it in the smears of sand beneath my feet, reading them like tea leaves, searching for secrets in something written in a language I’m still learning.

I know.  I’m mixing metaphors and speaking in vague references that will have those closest to me rolling their eyes.  But don’t worry.  I know what I’m saying.  And it makes me smile.

A bheith go maith, beo fíor.

Is it really December?

November passed in a whirlwind for me.  Partly, mainly, actually, due to my undertaking of a project titled Nexus.  Nexus was, is a fundraising project built around NaNoWriMo – National Write a Novel Month.  Over the course of the month I wrote fifty thousand words, and with the help of friends, readers, and an anonymous benefactor my good friend Michael Bekemeyer and I raised over $1000 for his upcoming film project, Gush.  It was an amazing experience, and I am incredibly proud to have been able to both write that much as well as see people turn out to for what is, in essence, a crowdsource creative project.

Around all that writing, though, life went on.

The workdays rolled by.

I spent time with friends far and near.

I traveled out to my mom’s for a fantastic laughter-filled Thanksgiving.

I went on a date.

The picture above was taken on my way home this past weekend.  It’s a view that is both familiar, and yet different every time.  Just like every day that passes; a new view, a new challenge, a new take on life.  I think I’m finally settling, so to speak, into who I am by myself.  I’m finding balance.  I’m discovering new things.  I’m laughing.  I’m living.

The holiday season is well in gear, and this one promises to be as different as I could possibly make it.  Christmas will hold little that is familiar, I think.  But, to be honest, the past six months have been all about rebirth, and life will continue to be about that.

Should we not be renewed every day?  Each sunrise holds a new promise, each day bears the potential to be more that just time that trickles through our fingers.

I realized today that I have a bibliography.  I knew that before, but it hadn’t really sunk in yet.  I have four novellas published, an anthology, and am in three others with another in the works.  The fact that I can list those off makes me realize that I am what I make of myself.  A long, long time ago I dreamed of being a writer.  Looking back I realize that I have always been a writer, but now I’m a published writer.  I threw caution to the winds, dove into the deep end.  And found, in the process, that I could swim rather well, and when I tired I’d made friends that held me up.

My next project is the get those fifty thousand words edited and sorted and published.

In addition I’ve made a bit of a promise to my nephews.  I’ve promised to write something suitable for my nephew to read.  So in the future there will be a tale about a boy and his little brother who discover a baby dragon living in a library, a wee little fire hazard whenever it gets hiccups, and the things they do to try to cure the hiccups before all of the books they love are put in danger!

You can never your fingers in too many pies, right?  And who knows, maybe I’ll be able to illustrate it and find that sometime in the future Boggles the dragon will be a favorite of children far and wide.

What?

Me?

Ambitious?

Head in the clouds?

Wide eyed and day dreaming?

Absolutely.

And I wouldn’t be any other way.

Are you listening?

Yes, yes, go on, I’m listening . . .

Yes.  But have you heard what I’m saying?  Are you hearing what I’m trying to convey?

I’m beating my head against a wall, it feels, lately, and this  it seems is the root of the issue.  So many inputs, so many distractions, so many different ways of going, being, living. . .

And the things we most need to hear are missed.

I’m setting myself a personal goal.  To stop and listen.  To stop and hear. To try not to multitask so pervasively that I miss those little things that are just so crucial.

I think it’s going to mean a shrinking, of sorts.  It’s definitely going to mean a shifting of focusing.  It has to.

So.  Here’s to a new goal.

To hear.  Both the things I’m trying to tell myself and to what others are trying to tell me.  And hopefully they, too, will stop and hear me, as well.

A bheith go maith, beo fíor.

I admit I dreaded today.  Worried, fretted, that today would see me crumble.

Instead. . .instead I feel loved, treasured, valued, more, I think, than I have since a child.  My friends and family have shown, illuminated, just how dim my life was before, and have pointed me towards my future with hugs, greetings, and just an all around show of support and love.

Friends near and far have reached out to share my day with me.  Family has as well.  The gestures, thought, intent behind all of the contact today has made my heart swell.  Even as I admit to myself that it will be a long time before I’m ready for another relationship, I find that my friendships are filling my life with joy and happiness and mirth.

A friend dubbed today my re-birthday.  I liked that, and have used it repeatedly to describe today.  Though my transformation began a long time ago, longer, even, than most realize, though it’s been painful, excruciating at points, there’s one thing I can say without a doubt.

It’s been worth it.  All of it.

So.  To my friends and family alike, Thank you.

Thank you for being touchstones

and bedrock, for supporting and

uplifting me.

Thank you for talking, listening, hugging,

and simply being there.

Thank you for handing me the thread and

needle so I could sew my ragged self back

together, and for taking over when my hands

shook too much to continue.

Thank you for screaming at the world with me.

Thank you for telling me I deserved more.

Thank you for reminding me of the person,

the woman, I once was and helping me

find the path to the woman I am becoming.

You all are more gift that I ever thought to find in my life.

Love,

Aisling