I’m back. This past weekend, we dropped our daughter, and our youngest adult child of our four adult children, in her new state, in her new apartment, with her new roommate, who seems less like a new friend, but more like a person our daughter must have known in a previous life. It seems as if they are ladies who have fondly known each other for months and months, not for just a few days. And this is such great relief for this mama’s heart!
So now, it’s here. We’re here. (I keep repeating this to my husband. “We’re here.” And my husband, being the more practical and less philosophical one out of the two of us, keeps looking at me quizzically, but thankfully he always kindly stops short of saying, “No sh$t, we’re here.”) This is the moment which I have been anticipating since our eldest son graduated from high school 12 years ago and started the whole launching pad experience for his three siblings behind him. Our four charges are all fully launched. And it is now time for me to launch into a whole new phase of my own life. It’s here. We’re here.
I’ve written this on the blog before, but it is a worthy reminder (and a mantra that I have to tell myself daily, and sometimes many times each day) – Worry does not equal love. Confidence equals love. Hope equals love. Faith equals love. Assurance equals love.
The time is here. My family and I are here at this whole new phase of the game. I always tell my kids that the best indicator of future success is past success, so I am confident, hopeful and full of faith and assurance that this next stage is going to be fantastic. It won’t always be easy. It won’t be without its stumbling blocks and its learning curves, but it will be amazing. This next stage of life, for all of us, will be amazing.
Yesterday, I read a quote by one of my favorite authors, Paulo Coelho. The quote is this: “You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.” We humans are creatures of habits and these long habits can often create beliefs in us that can sometimes keep us submerged in places that we need to swim away from. We all occasionally fall into the rivers of unconscious rhythms, despair, ruts, confusion, and ennui from time to time. But if we take a moment to get calm and intentional, we can stop splashing around in worry, we can stop drowning in our feelings and false beliefs, and we can give ourselves the life jackets of confidence, hope, faith, assurance and love. We can stop fighting the current of our lives and instead choose to curiously float with it, to the next interesting destination, waiting right around the corner . . . . the best is yet to come! It is. And we’re here for it.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.