little snips of fabric create a picture with a message |
It becomes a focus, a working framework, a way of learning and viewing the world. It will crop up over and over all year. Lessons will be presented, growth occurs. I've done this for many years and am always surprised at what surfaces for me.
Seldom what I expected when choosing the word.
So for this year... my word is change
I considered "learn" but learning is just a small aspect of the greater concept of change.
After writing to my friend Eliza, I understood myself better, which is often the case. Somehow in the writing, or talking to, a friend, I find out what I think, how I feel...what's important.
I used to think I liked change. I realized I like variety, not change.
I wrote to her:
"I like to know what's coming and follow a routine of my choosing.
Random change is unsettling, causing constant learning and decision making to cope. I do not like it. My friend June wrote that the Chinese symbol for change is the same as opportunity. I need to focus more on the opportunity aspect of it.
After all the changes that started when Cole passed, I seem unable to even pick out lunch.
I hope to explore better coping skills for change... so that must become my word.
Learning will ride along side like an assistant
Decisions are not always marked with lights and an arrow around them saying, "PICK ME!" We make decisions, big and small and live with the consequences. Maybe we learn for the future but usually we just accept the changes that come with them.
Drew and I still torment ourselves over the decision to move here. One day, on our lovely porch in Maryland, Drew said he felt he was holding his breath, waiting to start life.
That day we started our journey to figure out how to live life not just hold on. Thrive not survive.
We both feel regret about the move but now must live with it. We knew something had to change but what? We took action.
I moved for health but now I am panting all the time, and swollen, and in pain. I have large black bags under both eyes. I feel worse. I don't fit in. We are spending so much on the move and this large pretty house has a broken dishwasher they won't fix, a broken cabinet door, expanses of flooring I can't clean, a rocking toilet in the master bath and is so close to neighbors Milo can't relax. Daily I find broken and lost items I cared about in these anonymous brown boxes. More traffic, and more ice to cope with.
It's not home.
I woke saying we have to stop going over the decision, to admit it may have been a mistake or not, we took action to try to better our lives, and need to commit. I need to find peace with the changes.
"Let yourself Soar" made for Hoffman Challenge (I used their fabric for her hair) |
Change
No doubt the universe will hit me hard with lessons this year. I remember the year I chose release and ended up releasing more than I suspected I would.
My fear of change must be overcome by a desire for growth
This song keeps running through my mind...
"Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Oh, I don't know
Well, I've been afraid of changin'
But time makes you bolder...children get older
And I'm getting older, too, so...
I like this new young thing's words
This one was written for graduates, but I hope to be a graduate of life and it applies to me too
Thank you for walking this journey of life alongside me.
Love to all this new year with it's fresh starts,
We got this
LeeAnna
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