Mindful Monday

It is my intention to keep Mindful Monday posts short and leave space for people to get something out of them without mucking things up with too much of my own interpretation or laying my baggage down on whatever the gist of the post is. Today I'm going to depart from that plan a bit and talk about my weekend.

A while back Erik and I negotiated a weekend-off trade. A last hurrah before bring Yonas home. He went to Big Bend a few weeks ago for some backpacking/hiking on some primitive trails. This past weekend it was my turn, and I had the pleasure of spending the weekend with some of my favorite women at a condo by the lake. It was perfection, save the friends that couldn't be there. I didn't want it to end. On the drive home I felt a little panicky. I had fantasies of not stopping, just driving until I couldn't anymore and the finally checking in to a motel. Alone.

I felt awful really. I actually started to cry in the car when I hit our neighborhood. The tedium came rushing back. The constancy of need. The reality of searching and then finding yourself pushed into in the tiniest spaces of life, a flagging shadow of the woman you meant to be. Did I mention I felt awful? Guilty? A whole weekend alone and I couldn't come back filled with gratitude and a full well.

As we talked later, I told Erik maybe it's like this: imagine the disturbance of pouring water into a deep well. Water sploshes the sides; bubbles, ripples. The re-entry after a break is this way. The water takes time to settle and become still again. The pressure re-distributes along the sides of the well, things shift and finally settle. The well is solid and full again. The energy has shifted for me. I have slipped back in to reality, a full and quiet well. The trick, we all know, is to not let your well get so empty that it's such a shock to feel the water again.

I leave you this Monday with this quote:

"It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts."

~K.T. Jong

Wishing you all some silence and truth today.