It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
When I stopped writing back in December I really did think it was only going to be for a short week. As I had never not written to you for the last ten years.
But when the first Friday of 2022 arrived, the voice inside said something unexpected. It said don’t write this week. When the next week arrived, it said the same thing.
During that time I was writing my new book.
In many ways I was still writing to you.
So many of you reached out and asked when will the letter come back?
I appreciated that, as I was reconsidering the actual impact the letter was having.
Was there still a point to keep writing? Who was really reading?
Was it meaningful? Necessary?
These questions only came a few weeks into the not writing.
When the quiet emerged. When there was space for something else.
I was finishing the book. I was about to turn 50.
It was time to question my journey.
Time to be honest with myself. Maybe even ask the question. What about me?
My daughters were both in college and now one of them was graduating.
I had spent ten years teaching and writing about living life again after a loss.
I had created a new life. One I was proud of.
I had done it while caring for my kids, my new husband, his kids and the world at large.
But, what if I turned caring to myself? What would that look like?
To my surprise it was harder than I thought it would be.
It was easier to help others rather than myself.
I decided to stay in the quiet longer, to hear the voice that belonged to me beyond the tragedy. Beyond the surviving, and even some of the thriving.
What kind of life was waiting for me there? I started to walk in it, secretly.
It sounded like a lullaby at first.
Gentle like the wind you could stumble upon on a late spring morning.
I sat on a rocking chair, letting it take me for as long as it needed to.
I rocked and rocked. When something would come and disturb us, the wind would carry on. And I would do the same.
You see, the entryway to the life that is meant for you, is always different to what you thought it would be. For me it was a windy melody, hypnotic in nature so I could ignore the echoes of the old life long enough for the new life to grow roots.
They say, it takes a village. The kind of inner village that is equipped to build a new world is the type that has to come forth with tools from another planet.
I recognized I was at a similar crossroad I found myself in 2010, when I resigned from the corporate world to come find you. It felt like an alien experience once again.
At the time, I felt I was wrong to leave it behind to start something I could barely see.
But I trusted that alien voice, the village that came forth with tools that belong to the new world ahead. This time I have something I didn’t have then. Faith.
I have faith to trust the timing of my life.
But most of all the voice that tells me to stop walking down the path I had been in, in the last ten years. It is a scary proposition to say the least.
Who would I be if I did that?
I do know that, the answer to that comes to us the longer we stay on the new path.
The more we trust ourselves to carry on.
Uncertainty is the only certainty on this path and we must learn to trust it.
I now know what makes me happy and what doesn’t.
Ignoring the truth of that is not healthy. It is the opposite of healing.
The opposite of life. I am now finally ready to live my life for myself.
I can assure you that it upsets people. It makes things complicated.
It makes us step into a phase where we become divergent.
We appear selfish to others.
I stayed sitting on that rocking chair, listening to the lullaby from the wind.
Unchaining the chains that belonged to a life that was no longer mine.
One by one. Easy does it. I stood up.
And braved my way to the alien world once again.
I hope you do too.
With quiet winds,
Christina
P.S. More letters coming ahead. Sharing more of my journey, to help you reveal yours.
