New Beginnings

Now in this moment,

It’s time to start over,

Open your heart,

There’s nothing to forgive.

-          “Grace”, October Project from The Book of Rounds

Last week I had a long, complicated and rather pointed dream.  It involved a village having a festival, many of my good friends and acquaintances, music, food and my family.  It was also full of feelings of stress, distraction, jealousy and a sense of panicked inadequacy.  I woke from the dream with a splitting headache and the feeling that the world was passing me by. 

I started this blog almost 6 years ago, to commemorate my 20^th year of Pagan practice.  I posted 12 times and then was forced to stop, first by technical issues (my computer died and I didn’t have the money to replace it) and then by family issues.  In those 6 years, much has changed.  My son is older and in school full time.  My mother, with whom we shared a home, contracted lung cancer, was treated, went into remission, came out of remission and, this February, passed away.  I became my younger sister’s legal guardian and brought her into my nuclear family as a full member.  And I had another child, conceived, gestated and birthed while my mother was in remission.  Mom went into hospice the day after my daughter’s first birthday.  My husband no longer commutes an hour from home to work and I am no longer homeschooling a reluctant preschooler.  My faith is growing and changing in little ways but still remains firmly on the Pagan Path, although I have now drifted away from my UU congregation, and from the movement in general. 

For more than two years my own life was on hold.  I was my mother’s only caregiver and was slowly taking over care of my sister’s care.  I was gestating, birthing, nursing and focusing on my new daughter when I wasn’t caring for a dying woman or a grieving woman with Special Needs.  I was Mother, Daughter, Sister, Caregiver, (and Accountant, and Medical Representative and Estate Executor and more other titles than I can mention here), but I was not me.  Me had become a mythical creature that only existed in my dreams.  And now, 6 months after my mother’s death and one day after the 88^th anniversary of her birth, on my own 46^th birthday, I think that it is time to start figuring out how to be Me again.  The problem is that I don’t think I know how to be Me anymore.  The life I thought I was living, the path I thought I was creating isn’t where I am now and I’m not sure I can ever be there again.  Once again I am feeling rootless and in need of grounding and so writing here I hope will be a kind of rebirth.

I have no idea how often I will post or what the subjects will be.  All I know is that I’m being called to write again, after a long time away.  I still feel strongly called to serve my religious community but I no longer know how to make that happen.  I guess part of this attempt to find Me again will be finding out how to serve again, not just my community, wherever that is, but myself as well.  Maybe part of that service will be here.  Who knows?