the pause

No, not that one. Not the one that is lurking around the corner or has already arrived, not caring if you want to claim your crone status calling card. The pause I speak of is one of intention and necessity, when I put aside my fears of tabling the writing, saying no to yoga teacher training, and letting our soup of a family simmer for as long as possible. The stopping of time to cherish, to hold, to witness and listen. The moment between moments, between ticking clocks and digital count downs. While my mooring ball anchors to the sandy bottom, the dinghy bobs and rolls to meet the wavy waters as the rest of life happens.

I stand by my choice to surrender "me" time as the two older kids come home for spring break, actually, I bathe in my choice. With all my loves under one roof, time collapses into one big super nova. Mind you, this star's radiance is neither dazzling nor exceptional, but rather a brilliant glow that transcends with simple movements through the house, scattered clothes and objects, smoothie sounds and xbox shoot outs, sun tan lotion bottles left open and aloe vera stems oozing their red juice onto white kitchen counters, empty seltzer boxes left in the mini fridge and cracker crumbs splayed on the couch. I fall in love with the clutter and the cuddling, the soft sounds of the big man child who sleeps on the couch in our bedroom, the hidden floor of my daughter's room, the smells of almost burning chocolate chip cookies, the morning dog walks with my one early riser. I cook, I hug, I tidy, I sit, I grocery shop, I drive, I smile.

And then it all comes to an end. The bags get packed, the flights get boarded, the beds get stripped, the house feels big again with just the three of us. And the familiar ache sets in, the jaw clenches, the sleep evades, the longing lingers, the doubt circles, the momentum to start anew lags, stalls and barely catches onto the to-do lists that were created before spring break even began.

This act of surrendering to the fleetingness of the sacred continues to pull at my sensitive heart strings. Expanding and shriveling in all of the coming and going, my heart turns into a pile of tangled yarn I must delicately comb through after the pause button is released. I haven't found the formula, the best de-tangler, the right voice in my head to talk me through the darkness. Life goes on. The sun still shines. And it bleeping hurts.

(Have I told you my word for 2023? I can't remember. It's mastery.)

In all of this constant shifting of the lens- my soul mission for the year is to master what is here. To accept and own all of my parts, the fragile and the strong, the specific and the vague, the open and the closed. And, yet, this perpetual feeling of leaving or being left doesn't seem to be something I will ever learn to master. It brings up grief and codependency, choices and decisions, actions and consequences, mothering and being mothered. And all I can do is roll with it. Roll with the changing, adapting, and becoming- and repeating it all over again. Mastery is my own word, after all, and there will be no gold star handed out even if it's achieved.

And while I do hope for, but don't plan on, more ease and flow as we adapt to all three kids away at school next year, I will still choose to pause, to accept my decision to do less and be (around) more in our sacred together moments of sparkle.

It's been a minute... but I'm back. Thanks for being here.

Slowly unraveling, but in a good way,

St. Sunshine