This morning, my coffee maker let out its usual stretch… that low, contented “Om” as it finished brewing. The sound felt ancient, like the world humming its own awakening.
My new deck faces east now instead of west, and somehow that small shift
says everything.
I watched the sun rise and light up what’s left of the forest in my
backyard, the leaves are nearly done falling. I stepped onto the deck barefoot,
coffee in hand, breathing in the crisp reminder that life keeps going… growing…
no matter what we’ve shed.
Later, I jumped on the scale after a long, needed shower. It claims I
weigh less than I have since high school. And it feels true… not just in my
body, but in the interior design of this vessel. I am lighter inside.
At the counter, journal open, pencil ready, I chose truth. Only truth now… even
when it trembles.
I’ve been reading through old journals, through the lies I told myself in
the name of hope. For decades I wrote that it was just a season… that soon the
leaves would fall, the land would rest, and spring would arrive right on time.
I used nature’s cycles as camouflage, pretending the pain was purposeful
growth. But the truth? I was protecting myself from the reality I refused to
face… what I was intentionally living through in the hallowed name of love.
It’s hard to let go like the trees do… to live bare, exposed, fully in
truth. But I’m learning.
In today’s world, it feels almost revolutionary to go through a breakup
or divorce and still seek an honest understanding of what love really
is. We talk about love as though it’s a possession… something to have or to
hold. Or to ditch and forget. But love isn’t a thing. It’s a current. A frequency.
It’s not a person or a promise; it’s an energy we move within when we’re brave
enough to act from truth instead of fear.
A while back, I had dinner with a friend I’ve grown fond of. She told me
about her divorce…and how she and her ex-husband still hold love for each
other, still take time to care towards each other. I teared up, envious for a moment, wishing my own story had that kind of
softness. How much easier it might be for my children if friendship could exist
between us. But I had to reel myself back to truth…we were never truly friends.
There hasn’t been enough distance between old patterns and new boundaries.
Maybe someday, but maybe never. And that has to be okay.
I’ve traveled through every ache I once called love. I’ve owned my
patterns, the ones that kept me hoping someone else would someday see what I
saw…that maybe he’d finally recognize in himself what I already knew, and meet
me there. When he left, then asked to come back just months later, his words
told me everything: “I miss how you make me feel.”
It was never about me.
It was never about us.
The promises, the words, the dreams he painted…they were stories built on
shifting sand. I used to believe I was the foundation. Now I see I was the
builder, pouring my energy into walls that couldn’t stand.
I grew up in the Presbyterian church. Sunday school every week. Sometimes
we’d sing for the congregation… I still remember one song about a wise man
building his house upon the rock. I think about that now, realizing how I’ve
come full circle.
Because here’s one of the hardest truths I’ve ever had to swallow:
I am the pattern.
The forgiveness.
The “turn the other cheek.”
The check out on myself to make others more comfortable.
It’s scary to admit that…to wonder if I’ll always believe what people
tell me instead of what I already know. But even in that fear, there’s a gift.
Because here is my truth:
In nearly every relationship I’ve ever had, I felt the love and magic.
The spark, the frequency, the wonder. But what I’m realizing now is that it may
never have been reciprocal. The love and magic were always mine…emanating from
within, not reflected from without.
So maybe what I’ve been searching for this whole time is, in fact, inside
of me. Maybe I’ve always carried what I was craving… the belonging, the
tenderness, the validation. The little fat girl just wanting a friend. The
twenty-something woman learning the difference between desire and devotion. The
midlife woman praying not to become another cliché of loneliness (think Cats…
and a lot of em.)
But I am not lonely. I am awakening.
I can feel the shift inside me…an ancient fault line stirring, pushing
mountains of truth into the light.
This season of letting go feels different. It’s softer. Rooted. Real.
No fear. No masks. Just truth.
Sure, maybe I could have hung on a little longer. But to what end? When
would I have mattered? I get to decide that now.
And that decision…that moment of reclamation…screams freedom to me.
Freedom laced with love.
Love not borrowed or bartered.
Love finally my own.
I am the mountain rumbling awake.
I am the fault line shifting.
And beneath it all, the earth hums back:
Welcome home.
