This I believe

 

End of January 2007, I kissed my life in upstate New York goodbye.

My kids all grown up in South Florida and Seattle, my body aching, my future in a dark storm cloud looming directly over me, I realized nothing made sense any longer. I signed over the apartment lease, gave the cat and plants new homes, divided my stuff between Salvation Army and storage, and drove out of state for a year of reflection and regrouping. 

That really was the plan: a twelve-months’ sabbatical with exposure to new places and people, to recharge the battery, come back to Upstate and put all that newness in place for the next stage in my life: the golden years!

As I crossed the border into Pennsylvania and waved New York goodbye, I knew I would never live there again. In one flash, my neatly planned sabbatical became a pilgrimage.

Destiny: unknown,

Goals: keep breathing

Obligations: one and one only: connect with my core and find out what it wants, without the comfort of income, ruts to hide in, answers, securities or guarantees, while the world around me frayed.

Two years, I lived in a tug of war with my feelings, my beliefs, torn between loss and gain, victory and defeat, with plenty of anxiety and crises.
The agony over letting go of purpose, tasks, and routines that had defined me for years, without replacements or even a clear definition for replacements, made me so vulnerable it ached and paralyzed my thinking at times. The pressure of creating an income that made sense was still a dark cloud refusing to move on.

The one constant in all this utter confusion was the knowledge that I was on a pilgrimage and that pilgrims are supposed to be un-tethered, without structure or tasks other than being faithful to that pilgrimage and surrendering to the process.

If I remain faithful to my pilgrimage, it will steer me where I have to go.
The more I recognize my fears for what they truly are and challenge them, the more they become the very building-blocks of my empire.
I push my skills and talents to get me where I need to be.
The more I extend and clarify myself, the greater the opportunity for cosmos, soul, and Universe to find me and guide me.

My pilgrimage will be endless and the quest for Self and its manifestation will grow stronger as my pilgrimage continues.

This I believe

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