“Life can turn on a dime, and the direction you head in when it does makes all the difference.” Barbara Delinsky, wrote in her novel While My Sister Sleeps.
It isn’t about what happens, but how you respond when it does, and it amazes me that we all have different responses and head in different directions.
I am not sure there is a right and perfect way, but that there is a right and perfect way for you.
Oprah always talks about life giving you little nudges, but if you don’t heed them, they get louder and sometimes it takes a brick wall falling on you to wake you up!
So, it may not be the first instant that makes you change, but it could the tenth time and you can no longer pretend to pretend that it is once again ok with you.
We have to look at these nudges as Life or the Universe or God trying to wake you up to be present in your life, to make you aware of who you are and what it is you are doing and for who!
My oldest daughter is in the land of “Don’t Know” and I am in the land of “Must Know”.
When I venture into the Land of Don’t Know, and ask pointed questions trying to get a read on which direction she is headed, I come out empty.
She is sitting in complete comfort and peace until I wander in and begin nudging her and trying to turn her out of her land.
It seems impossible to me, to not know, to not have a rough or general direction, even a wimpy kinda sorta maybe direction.
Her life didn’t turn on a dime, but yet in her world perhaps it did. I think it came as a surprise that she would be out of college, that it ended, that the goal had always been to graduate, and she forgot to focus on life after.
We are near two months in the After, and she is still unsure of which direction to head.
Pondering, contemplating, not really willing to pick one, she is adrift in the sea of Don’t Know. Pick one, set an intention and head out.
The Universe and all it’s angels have to be sitting back resting near the Start Line, waiting for her gun to go off, and she keeps fiddling with the trigger, but way not ready to pull it.
Patience is not one of my virtues, and seeing the undecided is right up near the top.
Fear has me forever behind her, nudging her or is that the Universe using me to push her along.
If I am an angel of the universe to move her along, I could do it in a softer voice, less demanding, more understanding.
We both have been in tears over this, her not knowing and me not being able to let her be. She doesn’t know where she is going and I can’t let her rest until she does.
Even writing that sounds mental, but as a mother it is my job to keep my children on task and that if I allow her to not be in her life she will lose herself and I simply can’t sit down and let that happen.
I can’t let fear and uncertainty decide for her. I can’t let the shyness and tentativeness dictate, I have to be stronger than all of them to save her life and sense of self.
This isn’t just about leaving the home, freeing up space and time for me, it is about her self- esteem, her self worth, her sense of self, period. She is at the cusp of becoming all who she is meant to be, and her gifts are inside to be handed out, and I for one cannot let it die because of fear.
She is a beautiful girl, with lots of great qualities, quiet by nature, with the gift to laugh at herself, slow to jump in but once there fully engaged, kindness and gentle, cautious and responsible, delightful a pleasure to have around.
That is what I have to kick out of my house!
This task is not for the faint of heart, nor one her father is able to do.
It is up to me to be the one to shove kindness out of the door! To wake her up and ask and urge and shove and pull, and make shyness take a second seat, it is left up to me.
With love in my heart and knowing in my soul, I know it is for her greatest good that I kick her out of my world and into her own!
The strings are being cut, the ties are being severed, and on her own she feels. Floating free at last, isn’t this what all kids crave, to be free at last from their parents rule, from school, college, out on your own?
On your own, separate and alone for some reason gets a bad rap, freedom can be as scary as prison.
What are we afraid of, Ourselves, of not doing ourselves correctly? How is it possible to screw yourself up?
We are learning about her as she is learning about herself.
I am unwilling to direct her direction, but standing and pushing her to decide.
Life is not a dress rehearsal we are doing ourselves now, we are doing our lives whether it is on the couch we are laying or upright doing something. This is us and this is now, this is us doing ourselves!
How kind of God to give us each our own bodies and our own lives, we all get one to play with, do one.
All I am asking her is to do her self now. What do you want to do? What do you want to be, where do you want to live, what kind of life is your dream, what are your dreams, where do you want to start, the canvas is empty and you are the painter, the fabric uncut, begin!
Create you.
