The How of Now.

How did I get here?

Nine months ago I was just another girl living in Seattle...
going to work...
taking care of my kids...
having as much fun as humanly possible without getting in too much trouble..
(or at least getting caught).

Today the tears fall behind me...and I'm afraid to look back...
for fear the dam will break.

I want to say "I feel blessed for the experiences I've had" but that's not how I feel at all...
I feel angry and frustrated and resentful that I have been what I want yet I can't LIVE it.

I don't feel like me at all.
I feel disjointed and numb....
and sad.

I feel like the one who has left.

Being the one left behind is a miserable existence...but eventually you get your life back and go back to normal. The person who goes, leaves an indelible imprint that fills a gap and maintains a presence that lasts forever.

When you leave someone behind, you are making a conscious decision to walk away. With every passing mile on plane or train, you feel your closeness to them diminish. Every fiber in your body resists it...but there is nothing you can do with it.
You must go.

And then when you're back home, you feel so far away you would give anything to be back there for a minute. You would take back all of those hours sleeping or looking out the window...
or standing alone in a kitchen... and do sometime important and awe inspiring with that moment... something that wouldn't leave you left looking out a train window, wishing you had.

I know this experience is making me stronger....
love harder....
wish louder...

I just wish sometimes it didn't feel as if time were moving backwards pulling me into an alternate universe of stillness.

You've never felt truely alone until you've said goodbye to someone you love.
You can't hold them...or smell them...or look into their eyes...or feel their warmth or their hand in yours... their absense is like an echo in your heart.... reverberating a stillness in every chamber of your new quiet world.

So how do you live every day in the now...
without sacrificing who you are?

The you that wants to hold and touch and love and BE???
The you that must look past the moments captured in time that broke your heart beautiful and made you want it more than anything else in the world...
The you that wants to live inspired yet wants only to feel nothing...
the you that loves beyond words...but fears the isolation that vulnerability can bring....

HOW does one do it?

As near as I can tell....
and from what I've read....and what I've been told...
and from what I know...
there are really only three things....

1) You must always breathe....breathing is essential. It reminds us we are RIGHT NOW.
2) You must love with an open hand....control nothing. Expect nothing. Give as much as you can without surrendering all of you.
3) Love with all of your heart....but realize you can't make someone love you. The best they can do, is breathe and be, right along with you. Hopefully...beside you.

Most importantly, you have to keep your faith in front of you.

Knowing that whatever happens, is meant to happen. And whomever is meant to be beside you, will be there for good someday....

No distance. No timezones. No gaps.

But right now.