Learning to Orbit Myself...

I wrote… but from a place of confusion.

Hours of pouring something onto the page, or so I thought.
But when I read it back, I realized… it wasn’t my heart speaking.
It was my head.

I received a video recording of my ex… completely trashing me.
Listening to his words, who I’ve “always been,” what I am, what I’m not…
“Good luck to the next guy.”

Hmm.

Then I had my week with my children.
And I watched, in real time, how words like that can shape and shift the way they see me… in just a matter of days.

It’s been incredibly hard to hold.

Years ago, during a long season of breaking, I painted nothing but faceless women… naked, exposed, undefined.

Then one day, something shifted.
Color came rushing back.
I started painting bold, vibrant, Native-inspired pieces… one after another, like something had been uncorked.
It poured out of me. Fast. Unfiltered. Alive.

About three years ago, I began praying for something different.
Begging for it, really.

Peace.

I wrote it over and over again in my journal:
“I have and I am so grateful for peace in my life.”

I didn’t know exactly what it would look like, but I had this image of me, on a quiet deck, coffee in hand, still in my pajamas, watching the sunrise…
not rushing, not striving… just being.

And this morning that’s exactly where I was.

So I scrapped the “poor me” version of this post.

I’m done being the whipping post for someone else’s unhealed version of reality.

Someone else’s interpretation of who I am, how I live, how I love.

I get to decide that now.

From the peaceful sanctuary I’ve built for myself… piece by piece.

I’ve become almost surgical about removing what doesn’t belong in my life.
Careful. Precise.
Like the chef at a brunch carving station, slicing away what doesn’t serve.

Sometimes I wonder what will be left.

But then I remember…
I’m still here.
Still breathing.

So today, in my slippers, coffee beside me, I’m casually looking at budget travel to Portugal… because it’s beautiful, and I’ve always wanted to go.
Belize and Bali are on the list too.

We’ll see which one calls me forward.

But what I really want to talk about today… is balance.

For years, more than I can count, I’ve felt like a spinning top at the very end of its motion.
Wobbling.
Off-center.

I made a habit of stepping back and letting others be the sun while I revolved around them.
Dimming myself.
Telling myself that staying small was somehow… enough.

But then I remembered something.

There are more stars in the observable universe than grains of sand on this Earth.

There is room for all of us to shine.

And shine I have.

I received “Exemplary” on my final evaluation for the state.
I was asked to open my classroom to other educators.
Invited to facilitate at an art symposium this summer.
I sold more prints this month than ever before.
My Vagabond Canvas classes are full again.
My school art show was a success.

And tomorrow is my birthday.

Even with everything this past year has held…
I haven’t felt this kind of happiness in longer than I can remember.

It’s okay for me to be the center of my own orbit.
To be the star I revolve around.

But in claiming that… I also went inward. Deeply inward.
I poured myself into my work and my children.
Protected my solitude fiercely.
Said “no” more than I said “yes.”

And when I did say yes…
life surprised me.

New friendships. Unexpected connections.
People I might have overlooked before, now woven into my life in meaningful ways.

And slowly… I’ve begun to soften again.

To feel safe around men who are not my past.
To rediscover parts of myself I thought might be gone for good.

I’ve laughed.
Felt beautiful.
Kind.
Smart.
Playful.
HUMAN.

I feel more like myself right now than I have in years.

And most of all…
I have Peace.

Not the imagined version anymore.
The lived one.

But here’s what I’m learning…

Peace isn’t something you have.
Just like Love isn’t something you own.

They are energies you move through.

This morning, I wrote from the perspective of my future self: April 2027.

That version of me understands balance.

The Earth rotates around the Sun because of a balance between the Sun’s powerful gravity and the Earth’s inertia… high speed; forward momentum. 

And maybe that’s what balance really is.

Not stillness.
Not perfection.

But movement… held in just the right relationship with itself.

So as I move through Peace, through Love,
through time, desire, and reality…

I trust that I am finding my way into that balance.

 

Beautiful Creature
Hafiz

from Love Poems from God

There is a beautiful creature living
in a hole you have dug,

so at night I set fruit and grains and little pots of wine and milk
beside your soft earthen mounds,

and I often sing to you,
but still, my dear, you do not come out.

I have fallen in love with someone
who is hiding inside of you.

We should talk about this problem,
otherwise I will never leave you alone.

 

The Most Important Love Story I Ever Told...

“Love is an ever fixed mark…”

I woke up late…much later than I normally do.

I like to rise around 4:15, just to make sure I have time to journal, meditate, or sit with the early birds if it’s warm enough. That head-clearing time is the best start to my days.

When I started this new job, I created a small ritual that has helped me tremendously. I lay out my clothes for the next day, prepare my coffee, breakfast, and lunch… and remind myself, even when I’m tired, that “my future self will thank me.”

And she always does.

So when I woke up at 6:15 on Tuesday… I didn’t panic. Not even a bit.

I started the shower, threw on a shower cap, got dressed, put on my makeup, and pulled part of my hair up… messy locks that my students adore.

As I walked into work five minutes late instead of fifteen minutes early… still no panic.

I stopped to look at what was left of the blossoms and thought to myself:
This must be what it feels like to have a regulated nervous system.

Because in years past, my life was nothing but panic.
Everything felt like a five-alarm fire.
Every pebble in the road meant catastrophe.

My parents had dear friends that I absolutely adored... Alice used to say,
“It’s like pole vaulting over mouse turds.”

That was my life.
And I could never understand why.

Today, I had the day off… appointments with my girls.

When I dropped my youngest son off at school, kids and parents alike were waving. I even heard one kid yell, “Where are you going? We need you!”

This came on the heels of notes left behind after our art show… kids telling me they love me, that I’m “cool,” “nice,” and apparently the “G.O.A.T.”

And sitting at a red light, it hit me:

My whole life, I have just wanted to be seen for who I really am.

And somehow… all the love I’ve poured out into the world
has found its way back to me.

I felt like I had arrived.

Not in the way I imagined… but in a way that made me pause and realize:

Life rarely shows up how we expect it to.
But sometimes… it shows up exactly how we need it to.

Over the past few years, my perspective has shifted so drastically that my grief had to turn completely around.

I used to believe I stayed and tolerated so much because fate had knocked on my door.

But what I’ve come to understand through therapy and a stubborn “can-do” spirit is this:

I was the one standing in the way
of the life meant for me.

I had a chokehold on proving to people who discarded me
that I was worth loving, cherishing, choosing.

It never occurred to me.. not once in 27 years…
that what was meant for me would find me and stay.

Not because I proved it.
But because I already am..
sweet, funny, thoughtful, smart…
a chill, cool girl.

I’ve always been.

And then the dam burst.

And I was left standing in the aftermath… a partial foundation,
downed tree debris scattered in only one direction:

Truth.

My grief changed.

It was never about losing someone who loved me.

It was about realizing
I had never fully loved myself enough
to let what wasn’t meant for me
fall away.

I made myself small.
I walked on eggshells.
I took responsibility for someone else’s emotions,
someone else’s harm.

Mark Twain once said:
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

This was the biggest frog I have ever swallowed.

And if I’m honest… the hardest part has been forgiving myself.

When Rube was clearing out the house in Florence, preparing to move in with my Aunt Marianne, she gave me a number of things.

One was her college textbook… the complete works of William Shakespeare.

It’s worn now. The binding frayed from years of being held, opened, returned to.

Near the back lives the collection of sonnets.

One of them - Sonnet 116 - became my anchor nearly sixteen years ago, when I found myself discarded for the second time.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come.

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

I knew then that what I had experienced was not love.

I even wrote about it.

What I didn’t know yet…
was how to forgive myself for staying.

That part is still unfolding.

But I understand now:

I made mistakes.
And I am still here… living, breathing, and more than okay.

These days, my life is full.

Family.
Friends, old and new.
Men whose eyes light up when they see me.

Every interaction reminds me…
it is safe to try again.
To believe again.
To begin again.

Every hug from my children, my students, my people…
it all tells me the same thing:

Love has always been here.

Steady.
Present.
Unmoving.

An ever-fixed mark.

And now…
so am I.

I have written.
I have loved.

And finally…

I am learning
how to include myself in that story.

Let this be yours, too.

Let the play,
and the prose,
go on.