Towards the end of last month, Chris quit his day job, after many conversations about and loosely planning a more adventurous life filled with our true passions, rather than plugging along in what appears to be the American Dream.We just came to the conclusion, What's the worst thing? Failing to try or trying and failing? So we leapt. It has been, so far, the best decision we could have agreed to make. I've never seen my husband happier, more radiant, and excited about life. And in his joy, mine has been even more full.
This coming April, there are so many good things coming up. We are road-tripping to Portland as a family, Chris is recording a live album in a barn in Tumalo, a small community on the outskirts of Bend, and soon after that, he is undergoing surgery to donate his kidney to a woman, who, in the beginning he hardly knew, but now is glad to become so closely intertwined with. I couldn't be more proud of him.
I had always known I wouldn't lead an average life, and up until recently, I sort of felt stuck in a rut of normalcy and the mundane. Just going from one day to the next, waking up, sending my husband off to a job he despised, schooling the kids, eating meals, going for walks, sipping wine, looking forward to the tiny windows of time together on the weekends when Chris wasn't doing music at different venues, reading in bed, falling into bed tired enough to sleep with colorless dreams, then doing it all over again. A cycle, not terrible, but definitely not what it's supposed to be. For us at least.
There is a safety in the sameness of life. Of constancy. It can be uncomfortable to break out of. But if you have dreams that are alive in your soul, dreams that make you lifted up in your spirit to think on, then those dreams have to be acted on. It would nearly be a travesty not to.
I'm definitely excited to see what lies ahead for our family on this current road, but in that excitement, I'm also fully embracing each moment as it comes. There's just so much hope welling up in me over today and tomorrow, and always, as long as I keep my mind constantly fixed on the good that continues to pour out of knowing that each little act of love, a smile, a soft answer, or just being still in peace, shoots out glittering spider webs of relationship, kindness, intimacy with fellow humans,
I feel like, for me, I'm so intense and I tend to over-think and analyze things to death, but lately, just settling into BEING, to let the heavy things pass over me rather than soak into me like gray-gathering pools of rain into my mind, Perhaps it's not so much standing still beneath a protective umbrella shielding me from sorrow and the weight of depression, but continuing to walk despite the state of the weather, so to speak, knowing eventually, the pockets of sunshine will be there for me to step in, lift my face into, and bask in. But the days when the sun is hidden behind black, sodden clouds, I hold my own measurement of joy still near to me like a supply of rations that should have run out a long time ago but keeps going, because the source is from within now.
So much of my life was lived getting affirmation and worth from outside sources. So based on feeling, were my responses and love. I am learning to use the wings I have to fly over that junk now. I don't need to feel love in order to cultivate love, or spread love anymore. We can choose to be little containers for the stuff. Love is something that doesn't need a perfect, shady, or sunny space to thrive in. We just invite it in, we say yes, and it dwells in us, and spills over onto the people we get near. It's so cool. It's basically all I trip out on these days. Love. I know my blogs have been pretty steadily on this subject, but I simply haven't been able to move away from the focus of it. I guess I started out pretty dry and low on it. We can't give out what we haven't first received.
I'm still so bad at loving people the way I need to. I think I'm getting better at loving my family. Now I think I'll try to love my enemies... or at least my neighbors.
I will try to keep more current with what is going on in our lives since we are in this crazy new transition. Our dream is to travel, take this show on the road as a family.
Harmony has been singing more with her daddy, and it is so amazing to watch the two of them flow together in song and entertaining. It's their passion, so that reflects out onto the crowd. Anyways, I'm rambling. But I just want to give hope to anyone feeling lost or stranded..hang in there. Let hope fester. Let love penetrate the dry places in your heart. Allow yourself to believe that life is not merely about existing, but growing wings, and shooting into the blue. Cheesy, but, hey, there it is. You're worth it.
