10 Years Ago I Woke Up

On Mother’s Day 2016 I opened Facebook to see RIP Robin.

My head wobbled, my heart sank and time stopped.

I knew that she was very close to dying. I didn’t know it would be that soon. And I certainly didn’t think I would be slapped in the face with it as I was making rolls for brunch.

With the wind knocked out of me and my head swimming I attempted to continue the meal preparation. Without thinking I used my hand to scrape the dough off of the side of the food processor and deeply cut my thumb on the blade. That snapped me back to the moment enough to know that I needed to take a moment for myself.

Robin and I met our senior year of high school around a bonfire in the desert farming town of Brawley, California. Our love of sarcasm, philosophy, music and having a good time made us inseparable for the rest of high school. Though we would live far enough away from each other that visits were infrequent, we had that kind of friendship that rooted deeply from the beginning.

Several months prior to Robin’s death I had begun to toy with the idea of being happy. Did I get to be happy, even if it causes pain in those I love?

At that time I was approaching 21 years of marriage to my first husband. I had spent years trying to be good, faithful, selfless and grateful while feeling increasingly disconnected from myself. I did everything I was supposed to do, yet I found myself deeply miserable and completely out of touch with myself.

I was exhausted from trying to become someone who could finally feel peace.

Sitting in my backyard the morning after Robin died, I was pondering life without her physical presence. I wondered to myself, “Where did she go?” and in an instant it felt as if the top of my head opened like a funnel and the words, “it’s all made up,” came tumbling down from above and into my knowing.

I instantly understood that the framework I had been immersed in my whole life was a story. A story that a large group of people follow. But it is not everyone’s story of choice.

So, if it’s all made up, I decided that I could make up my own story and remember my own truth.

Decision #1 Trust myself.

Decision #2 Love myself just as I am in the moment.

Decision #3 Allow myself to imagine being happy.

Having my whole worldview shattered, I eagerly stepped out into the light and began my Reunion Tour.

I wanted to know how I got to the place I found myself on Mother’s Day 2016. Why did I make the decisions that got me there?

Since that day I have been on a Reunion Tour of my life. I lovingly revisited decision points in my past. With compassion and curiosity I was able to see the whole situation. It made sense at the time. I needed to survive the life I was living.

Now I can see that those decisions got me to today. I am here and can move forward with new information.

The death of my friend revived me. I was drowning in a lifetime of trying to please something outside of myself. That was not a life of peace.

Shedding expectations and learning to trust myself has set me free.

Ten years after that awakening, I am ready to share what I have lived and learned. Not because I have it all figured out, but because I know what it is to wake up inside a life that no longer fits. I know what it is to begin again.

And I love walking with others as they remember themselves and begin their own journey toward peace and freedom.