INSPIRED WANDER

My dearest Mom, thinking of you with a heart filled with love and gratitude on the sixth anniversary of your passing. Six years that seem like both a second and an eternity. When I close my eyes, I am immediately taken back to those final days in the hospital. The feelings of love, fear, release, hopelessness, and peace all come flooding back. Recently, the profound lessons that I took away from that time are resurfacing. Insights about the precious and precarious nature of this fleeting life, a sacred gift that can be gone in one blink, one breath, one heartbeat. You were here one moment and gone the next. Leaving the hospital that day it was absolutely incomprehensible for me to imagine that your journey was over. Things left undone – dreams to chase, words to say, one more embrace would now be left that way.

Watching you fight cancer with everything you had, because there was still so much life and love left that you wanted to be a part of made me realize how finite our time on this beautiful blue orb really is. Before my mother’s illness, I would often prioritize work ahead of time with friends and family, special occasions, home responsibilities and even my own health to a certain extent. I had a fairly radical reorganizing of life priorities in the year following Mom’s death. I walked away from my career in hotel management and went on sabbatical to Europe. Slowly, over months spent wandering some of my favorite places, I began to put the pieces back together again. I made a promise to myself (and Mom) to always try to achieve balance in life moving forward. Savor the things that I am passionate about, do less of the things that I am not, nurture my creative side and check my tendency to overthink and overwork. To be fearless in my pursuit of happiness, love and light.

Fast forward five years since that magical time in Europe, and I feel that I have lost balance again. Looking in the mirror, the reflection staring back is tired and stressed. The days and weeks simply not long enough. Seasons, and indeed years have flown by in a blur. New passions that were being explored after my time abroad long abandoned for reasons of “not enough time, never enough time”, or simply being too tired. Once again, work beginning to take priority above everything else in my life. It was easy to let happen, because I love so much about my career and am immensely grateful for everything it provides me. I run a fabulous resort with a fun and talented group of people who I adore. That is what made admitting that I need to get off the merry-go-round again for a while so difficult. I struggled with the decision for months and months, trying to figure out how I could make giving 150% of myself to work while still showing up in some way for the other parts of my life work. As many times as I ran the equation, it just doesn’t add up.

So, my beloved Mom, I am circling back to those lessons learned during the final chapter of your life to center myself again. It’s time once more to let go of control, ego, expectation and “duty” so that I can roam, follow my heart, fall back into rhythm with the universe and be the best and most authentic version of myself. I am preparing to depart for a sabbatical in Paris next month and will try my very best to embrace the unknow possibilities that lie ahead. Sometimes the road to transformation requires us to take things apart, so that the pieces can be put together differently to bring something precious and new to life. I never feel more connected to my higher self then when I am on the road, so no doubt there is wisdom to be found there. Mom, out of the greatest moments of sorrow I have ever know following your passing, these truths were revealed to me. As I now walk forward on this new path, I take you with me in a very special place in my heart that belongs only to you.

A lovely quote I read recently sums it up. “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.” Challenge accepted.

Missing and lovingly remembering you today, tomorrow and always, until we meet again dearest Mom.