Star light, star bright

 

Following a wonderful night's sleep filled with unremembered, glorious dreams, am deliciously giddy, realizing I’m at the right place at the right time with the right background & passions.  

Even more WOW is realizing that my weaknesses put me in an even better place than my strengths.  Well, recognizing & addressing them with verve & joyful expectation does.

At 63, I get to not exactly turn my life around, but to get it firmly on track for being lived better than ever before.  In this, I have a great precedent & fabulous role model in no less than my mother.  Yes, Katharine Reynolds Lockhart, my greatest nemesis AND my greatest ally.  She made astonishing leaps in her late 80s, early 90s.  She will be my shining light of what’s possible.

At the beginning of this year, I would have said my truest calling is to be an elder care solutionist, finding & sharing ways for oldsters & ancients to live as expansively as possible.  Last night, it hit me that another part of my truest calling will be found in the very  processes used pursuing it. 

Let me explain.  I spent way too many decades wishing & hoping for things to be the way they weren’t.  To have the sort of supportive, empowering family friends  support systems I envisioned others having – that I didn’t.  To be sought out as a friend, someone who attracted mentors & was valued as one.  To have the sort of intelligence that engaged & nurtured discussion.  To play at the top of my game, rather than dilly dally around. 

In other words, I pretty much embodied what Don Miquel Ruiz describes in The Four Agreements- “Humans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believe  they should be.”  I spent 50+ years being equally foolish.

Balderdash!  There is one & only one ME.  No one else has the life path I’ve trod, no one else has the opportunities that beckon.  How many people – of all ages – abdicate living their lives because they look across the way & think that others have it better.  They are them  & you are you! 

 

Which brings me to Mom.  I doubt she had the slightest idea how truly remarkable she was.  She never thought of her life as anything out of the ordinary.  She did what had to be done. 

If that meant making dinner for an elderly friend who lived a mile away, down one hill, up two others, walking there whatever the weather, trusty pick in her hand when there was ice afoot, then she did it – into her seventies! 

If that meant heading down every early spring to Bermuda as a companion to an elderly friend, then she did it. 

If that meant making seven trips to Australia between ages 65 & 85 to help with grandchildren, then she did it. 

If that meant doing the thing she feared most for the sake of a greater good, then she did it. 

The woman drove me nuts at times, almost around the bend, but Mom was Mom, herself.  If I helped in any way to clear away obstacles in her path, then now she has the opportunity to return the favor, serving as angel guide & cheerleader.

Time to take all the things that were, all the things that are, and have a blast doing all that can be done with everything. 

Do I have the slightest clue what that might actually be?  Nope.  But I know that it will be pretty darn magnificent. 

This morning, I find myself thinking time & again of Don Miquel & his four agreements.  Of first reading, many years ago, “If you live in a past dream, you don't enjoy what is happening right now because you will always wish it to be different than it is. There is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive.” 

How it thrilled me, first reading, “One day, he dreamed that he saw his own body sleeping. He came out of the cave on the night of a new moon. The sky was clear, and he could see millions of stars. Then something happened inside of him that transformed his life forever. He looked at his hands, he felt his body, and he heard his own voice say. "I am made of light, I am made of stars.”

We are made of stars.  Act like it! 

It doesn’t matter that it took Mom until she was almost ninety to risk everything to perhaps gain something of value, maybe not – there were no guarantees what she'd end up with, but she took the leap & in doing so revealed the bravest person I’ve ever known, a role model for all time.   

Now, it’s my time & turn.

This might read like a lot of twaddle blither piffing.  But I get it & it was important to me to share it.  Am on a remarkable adventure that will take me to the end of my days,  at least in this life.  Am filled with joy, with the glistening light of countless stars.  Just had to share, to say thanks to Mom, to a generous Universe that leaves me gasping in amazement at everything. 

“You express your own divinity 

by being alive 

and by 

loving yourself and others.”   

Don Miquel Ruiz