A heavy heart

It's easy to thrust one's ideas into social media highways when one is closeted safe and sound in the bosom of one's family.

Try tossing your deepest passions onto white screens without a support system or people to remind you of how valuable you are. Try flying in the face of a giant who refuses to fall when even your own family mocks you. That--is courage.

Tonight I am not splattering my life's blood onto the world information database; I am simply feeling the first throes of separation from my childhood and the ones who I am closest to, the first bite of loss I shall experience when I choose leaving in favor of the warmth of their presence in my life.

But I feel what it must feel to face the world alone. I've never been alone, you know. I've never knocked on the doors of the powerful without an interwoven system of support practically standing behind me and holding me so I didn't fall from trembling.

I'm about to set out on my life's journey...alone. Not utterly alone, of course, for I have my friends and I have Jesus Who always walks by my side. But it is into a strange new land I go, and I go where my parents and sisters can't follow.

And after I go on the first round of this journey, I can't come home again. I'm off to face the world on my own terms--without a full time job, without access to a lot of money to cushion a potentially hazardous transition, heck, I don't even know where I'll be living! Or with whom! I have no husband to sweeten the sorrow of losing my family, no man to soften the blow of facing the world without a lot of clout. I'll have courage to speak for me, and a track record of facing hard things and getting things done, perhaps of changing the world a little bit, even;

but I'm scared, world. I'm scared to wake up without my mom there to make me scrambled eggs and naan toast with tahini and date syrup. I'm scared to drive a used car without my dad there to fix all the strange things that fall apart. I'm scared to live without three other people there to make sure I clean the kitchen, or to cook and clean for. I don't want to live alone, and I shan't, but it just won't ever be the same. I'll be a legit adult, even if I marry, and I'll be the one who gets up in time to make scrambled eggs and naan toast.

Right now I feel a hole in my heart. I feel emptiness and loss. And these feelings are legitimate, although perhaps a bit ridiculous for a 25-year-old. It's true that I have left before, but I've always come back. I've lived in a foreign country; I've smuggled medical supplies into a communist nation; I've flown to Israel with a girl I'd never before met; I've worked as a lifegaurd, a nanny, a house cleaner, and an editor. I've been a dedicated member of 4 different churches; I've lead a small group, ridden my bike to work, and jumped off a 25-foot cliff into a bottomless cinote in the Yucatan Peninsula. I've done things.

And I'll do things yet. Lots of things. I hope against hope that wifing and mothering are some of them. Ha, and as I think about, those two are some of the MOST courageous positions a woman can undertake. It's like, if I don't get free of living thus with my family, I won't be able to face life on the terms of a woman head of household. I feel like I need to learn that lesson before I can fully embrace that part of life, fearlessly and full of trust in my Father.

I'll be ok. I know--in a few months, this will seem silly and I will be just fine. But today, I need to feel this, and I needed to get it out there.

Moments

There comes a moment in every life, perhaps unless one's life ends too soon, when one realizes one cannot go on the way one has gone on thus far.

This is not a superficial adjustment to circumstances. This is not a changed mindset resulting from a harrowing experience. This is more of a gut-level inner-reworking of one's lifestyle, mannerisms, personality even. And it's gradual, not sudden.

I'm not discounting those former situations as life-changing by any means; I only mean that my latter assertion is different than other types of life change.

Obviously I am writing this because I am currently experiencing a gradual inner-reworking. In my 25 years, I have most certainly undergone adjustment to circumstance and a changed mindset from harrowing experience. Today, I am honoring the change occurring inside of me as a new kind of change.

My dad put it thus today: "You lived your life a certain way up until now, and now you are making changes for the rest of your life." Changes that will prevent physical injury...

Maybe it's part of the "whole body" experience that the YMCA purportedly encourages: spirit, soul, body. (or maybe they say "spirit, mind, body"...?) At any rate, I am on the body right now.

I have to change the way I hold myself every second of the day. Change the way I sit, stand, bend, twist, turn, get in and out of bed, brush my teeth...pain teaches me where to move. I have to start strength training for the muscles I have never used as an average sedentary American. I have to pay attention to my posture; be aware of how I am standing; thoughtlessness will not be supported by my muscles anymore.

I am only 25, and it feels unfair. But what if my body is warning me against the future? Preparing me, if you will? Shielding itself against pregnancy, menopause, raising children, car wrecks, hiking accidents, a desk job...My muscles won't make it if they are atrophied or in crisis from the last 25 years of bad posture and lifting techniques.

This leads me into the vast amount of preparation that must take place in my life in the next 4 months before I move on to the next chapter. My mind, my soul, is undergoing a lot of steeling itself against major change. I wonder...I wonder if the unwinding of my spine coincides with the winding up of my soul.

All I know is that being aware of my body has never pressed itself so firmly into my consciousness. And my moment today is one in which I cannot go on with bad posture or carefree invincibility. I must plan my way...and trust Heaven to guide my steps.