Hugs...
Hugs
Sitting here with a room full of kids all around me… trying not to live in my head.
“Boy A… sit down and finish your work.”
“Boy B… read this over again and check your spelling.”
“Girl C… yes, you can go to the washroom.”
Checking my email. Finding a pen to write down an item for my grocery list… never mind, I’ll make a list on my phone instead. Responding to a text.
“Boy D… yes, you can go to the nurse. You don’t look well.”
“Girl E… your mom just texted me and said to go straight home after school.”
“Girl F… put your book away and pay attention.”
Is it 3:00 yet?
It’s Friday and all I want to do is to go home and relax. All I want is to go home and find some strong man there waiting for me to run into his arms, to melt into him. I just want a hug.
It’s been a crazy year and I feel like I’ve been carrying more bags than I’d like… way more than I’m used to… on my back, across my shoulders, under my eyes. I’ve been pulling and lifting and shifting my stance to distribute the weight evenly, and I’m tired.
So many bags…
Bag 1: finding out that a man that I allowed myself to love again after breaking my heart once before was recently engaged… trying not to kick myself too hard because I should’ve known better and well, you know, fool me twice...
Bag 2: waking up that Sunday morning after being on cloud 9 from my well received solo art exhibit the night before, to the phone call from my grandmother telling me that my dad was ‘gone’.
Bag 3: reconnecting with my 3 siblings and trying to figure out after all these years of not knowing each other, how we fit together at this point in our lives.
Bag 4: deciding if I’m keeping my studio or not, cuz my day job takes a whole lot out of me, making it hard to go create in… oh and it requires money to keep going and I need more of it…
Bag 5: money… I need more of it.
Bag 6: knowing that it’s time to walk into my destiny, but being afraid of and not really being clear on the path to take to get there.
Bag 7: and where is my mate? Shouldn’t there be someone going through this with me? Someone holding me close at night… someone massaging my shoulders, holding my crown in his hands, my head on his chest… someone making me feel like all too much isn’t too much at all…
Just bags.
But alas…
With each bag lifted
My muscles grow stronger
And I find a new part of me
A new strength
A new love
A newness
With each bag lifted
My mind is sharper
My heart warmer
And my spirit lives
More deeply than ever before…
Those bags seem so heavy now, but the deeper I dig inside of them, the more I discover that the heaviness comes not from the experience, but from the gold locked within it.
Each bag, laden with pure gold.
And while I’ll eventually move forward anew, I’ll take that gold and make new crowns so that I can reign in them every day of the week.
_________
Check out the collecting your gold collection and pick out a few as a reminder to always wear your crown! :-)