Shy of a year

Last week, we started negotiating our parenting calendar for the next few months. I had a couple of edits for February and March then I stumbled onto April. Looming towards the end of the month was a long swath of blue, which on my calendar indicates that he's traveling. As I looked at the label for that swath, I realized that it was the same conference from which he called me and we decided to end our marriage...I realize that I've been in shock for most of the last year.

It's been a beneficial shock treatment and as I approach the anniversary of The End I will grieve it in a way that I was not capable of as it was happening. As such, the universe is presenting me with several scenarios that a year ago I would have handled very differently. It's good to have tangible results to show that my thinking has changed. I know there is more to change, more patterns to rework, more ruts to destroy.

I've taken the last year to shed the old and dead. Many layers have peeled away. I see (at least) one more, major layer that needs to peel...this one is more like a scab or a snakeskin. This one is going to hurt. A pruning where I leave visible bits behind. I have strength this February that I did not have last year. The work I've done for the last 9 months has given me a reserve of strength so that I can face Fear and Pain head on. Sit with them. Hold them. Transform them. No longer running away or denying them. I have invited them in and will listen to all that they have to stay. I've already heard some interesting things...and they are just getting started.

I've been joking that I've been a pupa for the last year (heh heh, she said poop) and now it is time to spin my cocoon for the butterfly to emerge in May.

(Hmmm. SciFi Brain perks up at that: Perhaps I'm not a butterfly but a Grindle Fly mixed with Fear and Pain and perhaps we'll all be transformed into Love and Compassion on the other side. But, hopefully it's more like Wonkavision and Fear and Pain will just get smaller on the other side...but then I would, too, and that's no good. I need to be getting bigger, bolder, brighter. heh. I love brains--the leaps, the connections....which reminds me...ZOMBIES.)

Pupa out!