Beautiful Loneliness

There is something downright comforting about being alone.

I am not talking about the mass of my body being removed from the physical space of others.
I am referring to walking on your path of life and knowing that it is for you and only you.
When I walk in this truth, I find that I have much more appreciation for those who choose to share moments in time with me. I appreciate the conversation that is filled with substance. I appreciate the shallow niceties of strangers.

There was a time in my life when I did not want to relate to this loneliness. I wanted and longed for a life filled with people and their approval of me. I wanted a life where I could share the burden of my troubles by loading them upon the backs of others. I wanted a life where I could place responsibility for my happiness or blame for my unhappiness in the lap of God.

Then something outrageous happened. Death knocked upon my doorstep and took my daughter with him. No matter how hard I tried to share everything I walked through, I realized that I simply could not. I realized that my life is my life to live. I realized that the lessons I learned and the things my eyes were opened to were for me. I could not have transformed into who I am now without making peace with, taking comfort in and accepting being alone.

Choosing Love (The process)

Sometimes the people we love the most are the ones who seem to crawl right up under our skin and burn it from the inside out with their many human complexities.
There are the subtle yet blatant forms of disapproval and discontent we mangle ourselves in.
Before we know it, we are tangled in a web of deep inner thoughts that feed our comfort with all of the reasons to let go of the love.
We start searching for all of the reasons we should turn away from loving them so much.
We feed ourselves thoughts that will be sure to harden our hearts over time.
We feed the spirits of envy, deception, entitlement and self righteousness.
It feels hard to love through the storm of differences and we began to tell ourselves it is impossible.
It is amazing how we can flat out refuse to forgive when we desire it for ourselves.

At the end of the day, the question I ask myself when I find that I have engaged in this type of self manipulation is this...
"Is it worth me carrying to my dreams and into the next day if I live to see it" and "Am I comfortable having this in my heart if this person I proclaim to love was to leave this earth"

After evaluating, I usually decide to forgive and continue to search for love. I begin to feed myself all of the loving thoughts I can muster about that person. Before you know it, I am finding reasons to see the good in them. I start to appreciate their presence in my life. I feel an amazing peace come over my entire being.
I can then relate to them from a place of wisdom. I can approach our difficulties with care and understanding. I can truly appreciate the diversity and their own unique way of seeing the world. I no longer have the need for things to be MY way.
There have been times where I have held on much longer than a day or two but I am learning to let go.
I am learning that I ALWAYS have a choice to love.

Ancestors Dancing in My Veins

They are nameless but their blood runs through my veins

I sob as I listen to the rhythm of the drum

I wonder if the holy chants provided the strength that led them to survive all the things that erased their humanity

Thoughts of them burying their hopes and dreams into the ears of an infant
who will never be seen again
but whose soul will instinctively, without knowledge of where or how the seed was planted,
remember their responsibility to quietly pass along the tiny whisper of hopes of returning home

I returned home today

Today, they danced in my veins

My soul felt their hands grasping through the chains
and their arms embracing
and their voices calling to my core
as some distant memory of who I must be
how I must live
how I must honor