The joy. People, places, things, and moments that make you feel like you're in the presence of god/universal life force/oneness-of-us-all and help you feel a bit more grounded and comfortable in yourself. Those are the people/places/things/moments I aim to seek and embrace and cultivate. Being with the right people, in the right place, doing what feels so right in your soul is the stuff of necessity. Of life. I'm not a religious person in the secular sense, but sometimes I feel the spirit, the oneness of humanity, and so clearly am in awe of the beauty that is existence. To be sure, there is ugliness and pain and heartache and degradation, but throughout that, goodness abounds. I'm finding the good and learning to sit with what is. Not changing, nor demanding another outcome or reality. Chugging along, breathing in and out. One step at a time, forward or back. The life force that is us, that is you, that is I. Brilliant.
"You look happier than you have in years," she told me.
Another thought-- no one really warns you that healing can be painful. That healing is the long-haul, but the only sustainable path. No one gives you a book of rules, you make the ones that work for you. Maybe I knew that and it is what has kept me running and scared for so long. But through healing it's not only pain and sorrow, there is so much joy and freedom and release. Now I know that. Freedom can be ours, in so many ways.
