I love dogs, ice cream, chocolate, turquoise, lipstick, shoes, jewelry, God, riding my bike, pillows, watching sunsets, walking, traveling, reading, writing, spending time with my kids, cooking, watching movies, pondering life, flea markets, garage sales, vintage stuff, laughing, NCIS, having Tea Time with my friends, The Office, collecting old vintage bottles, purses, gardening, my grandchildren and that is just the beginning…….oh, and I love life AGAIN. Truth is a couple of years ago, I didn’t love much of anything. At All.
Sept. 6, 2009 I fell 10’ from an attic floor. I was told the floor was solid but it wasn’t. went straight down onto concrete in the garage. I was immediately rushed to the hospital where I was told how lucky I was to be alive. As of today, Nov. 1, 2010, I am still not walking without crutches and I have a huge orthotic boot on my leg. To say this has been a difficult year is an understatement. My life transformed in 3 seconds, or however long it took for me to fall. One day I was planning my life, scheduling workshops, and retreats and looking forward to a new home, and the next minute I laid on the ground helpless.
One of 12 different boots or casts I wore
The 2 pasts year included, 4 surgeries on my leg, 12 different casts, loss of my own home, living “homeless” for 12 months and living in 6 different friend’s homes. I lived out of 2 suitcases, and have basically learned to “scale down” on possessions, clothing, certainly shoes (when I can only wear one at a time due to casts). I lost a dear friend to suicide 8 weeks after my fall, developed shingles in my foot twice, had a bad infection that broke out on both hands, preventing me from being able to walk on crutches with comfort, I had a computer crash three separate occasions causing me to be without a computer in bed for weeks at a time. I was in bed for several months, in wheelchairs, on crutches, in a walker, in hard casts, soft casts, braces, and then more braces. And life was anything but fun, loving, or lovely. I just simply chose to show up.
I feel like when I laid on the concrete floor that morning, I left something behind. I lost a part of me. I lost some dreams I had, I lost life as I knew it, or life as I thought it was going to be. But the most amazing thing is beginning to happen; I am finding that life, as I thought it was going to be, wasn’t perfect. None of it is perfect. It was just a track I was on. Now I’m on a new track. A track that I am open to see what happens. I feel like the things lost will certainly be replaced with breathtaking moments, moments of gratitude, and a new “lightness”. After you have lost so much, you realize there’s really so little to hang onto. The things that matter the most are still here.
I am on a journey of rediscovering life in a new way. A way that is more open to the journey, and less worried about the end result. I am now living a Gypsy Life. This means I am choosing to live life a bit differently this year. I live out of suitcases, and I Travel. I have been in FL, CA and IN in the past 3 months. I brought a few things that I adore along with me on this journey. I have a few of my treasured little bottles I put flowers in, a special tea cup and saucer, a mug that my son Austin drank out of all the time, I have pictures of my family, I have one “special” thing that each child has given me through the years, crayon drawings from my granddaughter Kai, and I say to myself, what else could I want. I do hope to run again, to walk again at a little faster pace than I am now. But I am ever so aware that I can still find Joy in the midst of life. In the midst of the chaos and the pain I still have Hope, Hope in a God that I know loves me. What else is there really?