A SEED FIRST

"Who says you can't go home?" Not I. Lucky for me, my mom is still alive and very much herself and she lives in the same house we've lived in since 1961. It's the place I feel most rooted to...lots of underground connections and it's walls sing memory songs. I'm reflecting on all the residual stuff that surfaces only when I sleep in the spaces of those songs during the quick visits I make to visit with her in our old home. And I'm thinking of Priscilla...free at last from the anchors that kept her here on Planet Earth long after her quality of life ended. Does she stand at a threshold looking back? Or does she have her back to the gate and her face to the future? Is she wondering if she can ever go home again? And can she? Does she feel cut off from her roots or has she actually returned home to those roots that are made of soul and spirit? I want to write my blog because it's been quite awhile since my last posting. I'm making myself write a brief entry because my Mom is here visiting us in Maine for the first time in a year. This is a symbolic action. Being the caregiver that I am, I usually drop everything for my visitors and put my wholehearted focus on them. I do that at my peril because in doing so, I neglect my self care when I have company and my focus becomes split between my guests and what I "should" be doing. So today, I'm stepping away from my Mom and her thoughts to tend my own... however briefly and hope to be planting a seed of self nurture so I can stop this damn cycle of overcompensation, do do do do and then burn burn burn. It is how I burn myself out and then require several days or even weeks in a vegetative state to balance my energy.

So there. I've taken a moment to fullfill my own need and planted a seed that I hope to tend more dutifully as the days roll by. I've got to or I will lie on my deathbed wondering what happened to my life while I was so busy taking care of everyone elses. After spending Priscilla's last hours with her in her state of active dying, I am suddenly feeling intense...fervent about claiming my own life...my own time and my own choices. It's great and wonderful to be a cheerleader for the ones you love...supporting their efforts and praising their successes while soothing the failures that bring them down. But I've put my self on the backburner so long that I may boil over if I don't take immediate action.

There. Done. A seed is planted in light....it's that easy.