I have felt for awhile now that I am on the edge a big change in my life. It wasn't just the fact that I turned 40 in May. Many of my peers spent the time leading up to their 40th birthdays getting fit and losing weight. As much as I would have liked to focus on that, I spent the time leading up to my birthday losing my home and starting over yet again. This latest move has forced me to re-evaluate many aspects of my life. I spent the Summer getting rid of a lot of stuff. I'm almost done cleaning out. This is not a konmari approach but more something driven out of fear and necessity. If we have to suddenly move again, I need to limit how much we have to pack and move. This blog has been idle because I haven't been creating anything. Instead, I have been dismantling things. I have yet to open all the boxes from my old workroom and make tough decisions about getting rid of craft and art materials. It has been so long since I have sat down to create anything at all. I used to paint. I used to collage. I used to sew. What happened to that person?
The last five years have been tough. Our lives completely changed when my husband lost his job. Although we are both employed now, we are not making the money we did back then. Our new rental costs us $600 more than the old one. Almost all my paycheck goes to cover rent and we usually run out of money by mid-month. We are trying desperately to dig out of the debt accrued while my husband didn't have a job. We'll get there. It is just a painful process in the meantime. I am working towards the goal of owning a home again. That is my sole focus right now.
As we work through these difficult times, I am starting to think about who I really am right now. I find myself attracted to surprising things and people. I am drawing inspiration like never before from Instagram. I am feeling called to start a Bible journaling practice to re-focus my faith journey. I am changing my style and how I look. I am trying to figure out ways to get healthy while working full-time and taking care of two households. Things are happening.
I decided to join Brave Girl University to re-take some of the Brave Girls Club classes that meant so much to me several years ago. I think I need to spend some time figuring out who I am and what I really want. I feel myself withdrawing from a lot of things that used to give me joy and turning away from the company of others. It is as if I am building a cocoon and isolating myself to start the painful process of becoming someone else.
I am not sure what is going to happen but recently I have been turning to Rainer Maria Rilke who meant so much to me in my college years:
"How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.
So you mustn't be frightened...if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. "
