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Friday, April 19, 2013

Leaving A Place You Love

April is supposed to be the month for awakenings, for moving up and out, for rediscovering what is new and fresh.  It is not supposed to be about illness and overdue snowfalls and bombings and exploding fertilizer plants.

Still, that's the reality of this April, and these are painful realities.  The grief and fear of the U.S. right now, as well as in much of the rest of the world, is real and worthy of our attention, compassion and grief.  Next to the magnitude of what has occurred, my concerns and nagging irritations are inconsequential.  But, still, they are my inconsequential irritations and are at least indirectly related to what this blog is all about.  I am in the process of letting go of the place I've loved for the last 21 years and turning my eyes to the place I've just recently fallen in love with: the central Oregon coast.

I've had swaths of time to think about what it means to leave this place.  I came here to heal and to try to forget what felt like the mess I'd made of my life in Southern California.  I came here, to this beautiful canyon place by a wild and scenic river to try to slough off the pain of failure and to come to terms that I hadn't been living the life I wanted to live.

And I accomplished what I set out to do.

I acknowledged and accepted the fact that I don't have all the qualities needed to be a very effective counselor.  I forgave myself for not turning out to be the woman I think my parents would have preferred me to be.  I renewed my commitment to my marriage and fell in love with my husband all over again.  I healed my relationship with my mother and was by her side when she died.

I wrote my memoir and honored myself, my mother, my grandmother, and this place, by doing so.

I found my true calling.

And now I am ready to let this place go.  This house, this canyon and river, this stage of my life.

I've had a week to myself here while George took care of his parents in Florida.  Due to a virus of some sort, I had no energy to pack or sort or clean.  So I sat.  As snow fell, I watched with shock and grief the developing situation of the bombings in Boston and the explosion in Texas and when it all got too much, I watched the spring snow piling up outside this home I've loved and am about to leave.

I know only one thing.  Change is inevitable.  And in order to have some semblance of happiness in this short life we've been given we need to learn how to let go and move on.  We do it easiest if we have learned first how to fully embrace each present moment.  I learned how to do that here, and now I'm learning how to leave this place I've love so much.