I used to define home in a different way.....maybe it was subtle, and I wasn't even fully aware of it.....but home as a kid felt like the inside of my house with my family, doing our thing.....and then when I got married and had a family of my own.....that was my home.....not the walls around us, but the love shared between us......and it meant everything.....we had that conversation at lunch at work yesterday.....there was a woman we know of, whose husband is abusive, and she stayed and stayed, and we talked about how nobody can judge somebody's willingness to do that..... when so much is at stake....her marriage and family....and people have to be ready to move on, and need grace and understanding, not judgement......that understanding has come to me through my own truth......because the truth is....... I never imagined myself staying in a marriage or a relationship where my husband had had an affair.....never.....but there I was staying, and trying with all my might and heart to make it work, and save it all.....because of the notion of "home," believing most of my life that home is an external place.....a place of love among our people.....and it is to some degree....I still believe that.....my children feel like home......in the truest sense....they are my ride or dies....my favorite humans....showing me love and filling me up........but I have come to believe, or learn that home can also mean the state inside of ourselves.....there may be people that believe I focus too much on my healing or my journey or my internal state....and that is OK.....it is hard to understand unless you are in it....but I believe it is what pays off in dividends......and has for me....my way home after losing all of it.....just watching my life implode.....like Dorothy when her house is swept up by the tornado....and everything is spinning and falling......and I remember feeling like I was in free fall.....like somebody had aggressively shoved me....hard....out of a plane.....against my will....against my beliefs, against all of it......and there I was falling, watching pieces of my life fall away, and every single thing was out of control.....and certainly out of my control.....and it felt devastating.....terrifying actually.....but then I realized a powerful thing.....I could create a place inside of me....one that feels like home too......that nothing and nobody can ever take again....when our world is spinning, and stuff is in flux or turmoil......our way home is to go inward.....focus on the stuff that grounds us.....grows us....nourishes us.....fills us......and shift our focus away from the external stuff we cannot change.....and it has been a game changer for me to learn that.....just an amazing gift in every way! My life is not easy....very blessed....but not easy.....so much goes on that threatens my peace....the peace I clawed my way to....and the way home is to focus on what I can control.....the things that improve my life, and trust the letting go of the stuff I cannot.....and soon I become the eye of the storm again.....I wrote about that a lot in the beginning......feeling as if I was learning to be the eye of the storm, as the storm in my life raged on.....it still rings true to some degree.....my life is not nearly as turbulent as those early days......a much calmer swirl these days lol;-) but it requires a certain steadiness, and intentional grounding in myself to walk my path....and I am committed to that every day! We don't get to decide what comes, only our response.....and my home is here.....within my soul, and my heart........ and surrounded by the love of my family, friends, and children each and every day......:)
jperuso
Comments