The weekend was an exceptional blend of meditation, study, growth, inspiration, and relaxation. Now it is over. I’m okay with that; it puts me one day closer to seeing my traveling partner again. His weekend is over, too. Soon we’ll get together, and linger over the sharing of individual experiences, telling tales, reflecting on growth, laughing, commiserating, and cheering each other on in life. Funny thing about good weekends and my brain, I slept very restlessly last night, waking every 90 minutes or so concerned that I might somehow miss the alarm, checking the clock, and returning to sleep. By 4:15 am, I was done talking myself into more sleep, and went ahead and got up to take on the day.

A different coffee, on another morning, and thinking of love.

Something ‘clicked’ for me yesterday, and I find myself on what feels like very firm ground, as an emotional being. Calmer from deeper within, more centered, more patient with myself and the world, and capable of acting from a place that leverages the full measure of my 52 experience-rich years. Something a step beyond comfortably me… and I wonder if it will ‘last’, and what it requires to nurture this feeling and build on it? I sip my coffee and quietly contemplate all the many sorts of changes human beings experience in a lifetime, those that are evident to everyone, and those that are less so. I find myself wanting to greet Monday differently… something like “How was your weekend? Mine? Oh, I’m changed…”  That’s not the sort of thing one generally does. I find myself wondering why not…?

Between the practicing and the studying, the growth happens. Sometimes it is something I can feel, or be specifically aware of, sometimes it is more subtle. There are no rules about how this thing called life must progress, or how we grow as human beings, or what kind of time and effort that takes; we are each having our own experience. We can fight it off, if we choose. I’ve tried that, too, and found it frustrating, unsatisfying, and in some cases more than a little damaging. I’ve learned over time that growth isn’t the result of forcing myself to trudge through life from one externally imposed goal to another, or working my ass off to achieve some vision of me someone else holds. Growth is the result of waking up and realizing I don’t need someone else’s goals or guidelines to find my way – understanding why that is, and becoming my own cartographer. Growth is finding satisfaction in the experience I am having, myself, and learning to enact change based on my own vision of who I am along the way. Growth is waking up to how much of the baggage I carry is self-imposed, and setting at least that much down, and walking on. And doing it again when I noticed I’ve picked it back up, and repeating as needed until, over time, I’ve left it behind. I’m feeling pretty good about growth this morning. 🙂

Seems to be very effective so far… probably doesn’t hurt that the path is mine, and that I choose it myself.

Truth is, I feel pretty good in general this morning, except for the pain – which I haven’t mentioned, because I ‘didn’t notice it’ (meaning only that it wasn’t prominent in my consciousness, and I wasn’t giving it any attention). The alarm went off a moment ago (I got up early, but didn’t think to turn it off) and, in movement, the pain and the stiffness of my arthritic spine shifted to a more obvious place in my awareness. Aging has some pretty annoying elements to it; the pain and stiffness of my arthritis top my list of things that annoy me about aging, this morning. I am confronted with an irrefutable demonstration of the difference between ‘growth’ and ‘aging’.

I pause to reflect on growth and aging, and wonder if medical science has advanced enough to rationally consider 120 a realistically achievable lifespan… If so, I’m less than ‘half way’… that promises so much more growth, so many more experiences, so much more learning, and so much more love! I’m not even having to start the second half with a completely unformed consciousness – it’s like a head start! Only… what if this is the ‘completely unformed consciousness’ with which we do approach our mature years? I mean… I am significantly different in thoughts, values, and experiences than I was at birth, and it seems likely that I will be a similar order of magnitude different at the other end of this experience, given continued growth, learning, and experiences. Is ‘getting old’ more a matter of stopping growth, or slowing it down, than it is additional years of age? There seems to be some support for that in the science…certainly there is very firm encouragement to keep walking, to keep reading, to keep learning, to keep loving…all these things slow cognitive decline. (Are you still quite young, and reading this? Plan ahead! Live now. The future will come to you.)

A weekend spent meditating, sketching, writing… feeling loved along the way…

…taking time for study, and reading for pleasure…

…taking time for pleasure, and the occasional moment of self-indulgence…

The weekend seemed almost eternal, and still it manages to be over too soon – but my needs are met, and that is a wonderful feeling. More wonderful still, I met my needs myself, with some lovely sprinkles of affection and connection with my traveling partner and friends. There are things to learn from that, and I face the week feeling more emotionally self-sufficient, and what is becoming, over time, quite typically content. Two years ago I would not have dared set expectations with myself of being in the place I find myself today…a year ago, it might have seemed possible in some remote theoretical way, but self-doubt, insecurity, fear, and stress were not just holding me back – they made it tough to see further down the path than tomorrow. Even Thursday, I might have said ‘someday, sure…’ and didn’t realize I might feel the way I do as soon as ‘now’. It’s very much a ‘now’ thing, too. I’m comfortable not making assumptions about how I will feel tomorrow, or whether every day of my future will feel similarly; this is a human experience, and change is part of that. There will no doubt be opportunities for future doubts, fears, and insecurities, and surely I will find myself, now and again, at a loss for words, feeling awkward, or just fucking clueless in some moment when certainty would have value. I’m okay with all of that. I have more room to grow, to learn, and to experience life’s curriculum. I am okay with only being as wise as I actually am…and I am ready to embrace being every bit as wise as I have grown to be, without second-guessing that, or being discouraged by other voices. (Yes, there are verbs involved, and yes, I expect my results may vary.)

Today is a good day for being, and for becoming. Today is a good day to accept the woman in the mirror precisely as she is, without holding her back from change and growth in the future. Today is a good day to build on the strength of experience, and to recognize that there is room to grow – always room to grow. Today is a good day to treat every being well, including the woman in the mirror. Today is a good day to change the perspective from which I view the world.