Finding Peace in a Sunrise...

I watched the sunrise one warm July morning over the Washington monument from the train. It was such an amazing view, a single tear rushed down my cheek. I chose the quiet car for that mornings ride. The night before had left me a little shaken and the silence of the 5:30 am train was comforting. Just as the sun rose, I received a text message with a simple statement that was perhaps the most beautiful words I had ever seen. It was simple, heartfelt, natural and absolutely real and thinking back, I don't quite remember if it was the sunrise or the text that brought the tear down my cheek, but either way...I was moved.

Now more than two weeks later, I wonder if I have seen the sun since. I am sure I have, but I don't remember. I definitely haven't seen the sun with the same understanding that I had that morning. It's quiet again now in the middle of the night. I don't sleep. I am not scared or worried, sad or angry, thinking about anything, stressed out or any of those things that come with insomnia. I am just not tired and there is something comforting and peaceful about the midnight air. Its been raining at night too and I love the rain.

I have always believed that everything happens for a reason and if you are patieint and listen long enough, you will find out what that reason is, or at least understand. Even when I have been faced with some of the most difficult things in my life, I have tried to sit back and learn what I need to from that experience. Now I wonder about that sometimes because there are things that happen that do not make any sense, at least not for the moment. One of my dearest friends for the past 10 years has stage IV breast cancer that has spread to her bones and suddenly what has been happening to me seems so insignificant. She has twin boys who are only 14 and yesterday she told me she prays just to live to watch them grow up. I'm alive and the rest of it just doesn't seem to matter anymore.

Aerodynamically, a bumblebee should not be able to fly but it doesn't know that, so it goes on flying anyway. Well, there are a whole lot of statistics about how someone should feel or react given whatever situation they are in, but like the bumblebee they can choose to fly anyway. I am not talking about my friend, who was actually worried about me, which is just the person that she is. I am talking about embracing life and remembering that day. I had to find a point in time where everything felt right, that was the morning on the train watching the sunrise...

Dishing About Life Over a Midori Sour and H'orderves

It was October 1998 when the first three of our group met. The fourth person would join within a few months. I was facing a huge decision at that point of leaving Law School to work full-time or continuing to pursue something that I was no longer sure about. Law School had strict policies about working too. I mean, showing up for the LSAT and being fingerprinted was certainly jarring to say the least. However, each semester you attend full-time you earn residence credits but you have to sign a statement agreeing not to work more than 15 hours or you lose your residence credits.

After I took the job, I knew I was making a decision that would change the course of my life. Sometimes, the path you choose leads you somewhere you never even expected. We met at work, the four of us, all doing different things at the company. Three of us left after awhile to purse other interests, but the friendship we started at work over time, blossomed into a family. These women are like sisters to me and we have laughed, cried and everything in between. One of my friends literally lives across the street from me, and she is like my mom. I am the youngest, but as a single mother, I don't party or go to bars and places like that. So the friends that I have are like me, we go out and have fun, but it is whatever we feel like doing at the time.

On a typical Friday night, at least once a month, though sometimes less frequently and we make up for lost time, you can find the four of us gathered at one of our favorite restaurants, laughing and dishing about life over drinks and some variety of appetizers. We would be there for hours talking about everything and nothing at all. This is unless we are our favorite place Tierra Colombiana in North Philly, which isn't quite the same now that the valet parking is no longer available. By valet for those of you who knew the place before they built the mega Rite Aid across the street, I am talking about the guy who would offer to watch your car for $1 as you made your way through the vacant lot to the restaurant. We gave him the dollar because who knows what would happen to your car if he didn't watch it! :)

I consider it a gift to have true friendships in this lifetime, not that I haven't had other friendships in the past. I am older now and different and they stayed by my side even during a time when I tried to push everyone away. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares. Perhaps then sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. We all balance each other at different times. Its strange for me because my girlfriend who is like mom, overreacts to everything and she panics. I love that about her though. My other friend is a little like that too, but she is more comfortable rationalizing things and usually provides perspective. I am here now, having gone through something that pitched me into the very depth of my own despair, I can sit with her comfortable that there is absolutely nothing I can do and just listen.

Somewhere inside we know that without silence words lose their meaning, without listening speaking no longer heals, and without distance closeness cannot cure. Sometimes it is enough to be there instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, and chose rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand and open heart.

It's enough.

My Starter Life

I remember seeing this statement somewhere but I cannot recall at the moment: 'this life is a test. If this had been an actual life, then you would have received instructions on where to go and what to do.' I find myself at a great crossroad in my life and in many ways; everything that has happened thus far has led me to this very moment. People talk about hitting rock bottom and it is often associated with great loss or overcoming an addiction, but I wonder if rock bottom is really when you get to the point in your life where everything feels like a blank canvas. As a person who has never tried any type of illegal drugs and literally can’t tolerate more than two drinks at a time, there are other ways to hit rock bottom.

I have experienced my share of pain and then some even, and it occurred to me that I have spent more than 30 years just surviving, but never really living. Maybe that is what is needed to really push past the pain, to get to the point where there is nothing more that anyone can take from you personally to learn to live. I am not sure what that means either. Maybe life is really a series of events that you manage to survive until you get to the next, but I would like to believe there is more.

This is where I am. My life is my canvas and in reality, I have about five weeks to decide what that is going to look like. The decisions that I need to make are difficult and no matter which path I choose. This is my journey of taking what I have been through, processing it, cataloging it and storing it away into what I will call ‘my starter life.’ Writing has always been therapeutic for me and as you get to learn more about me, you will understand why.

I don't know how the story will unfold or if I will write about exactly what brought me to this point on this blog. It is far too recent for me to start peeling off those layers in an open forum. There is no planned happily ever after ending for five weeks away. This is my life, as I experience it.

This should be interesting.