Accepting the person I am now - Freedom - Always Letting Go

I had to drive out to an island to measure a job this afternoon.  It is about an hour one way and truthfully I was looking forward to just going somewhere different for a change. You can take the faster google way and cut the time down by fifteen minute using some newly built connecting highways and bridges or you can take the old route that winds around the waterways with spectacular views of the marshes and beaches.  It was raining pretty hard so I took the speedy way up and the slow way home.

I have a lot of history with this area.  During the recession and my dark time I would go to the state park out there and walk.  If I had an appointment out there I would stop afterward and sit on the beach with my business clothes on and meditate. I remember one winter day just sitting on a rock and a couple of men came up and ask me if I was okay. They thought I should be cold but my menopause furnace was burning hot. I told them I was waiting on God. 

I have a way doing things intensely until I have had enough and moving on. I spent so much time up there and when I got better and just stopped. Places can represent a time in your life and that was not a good one for me.  I have no desire to go there and be out in nature anymore.  I have walked miles and mile in the woods and now I just want to work in my yard. 

For the trip I pulled a random CD out of and old stack I keep in the car it turned out to be the Indigo Girls live CD.  I haven't heard it in years and it made me think about the person I use to be. The songs brought back a time in my life that seems like a million years ago now. It didn't make me sad it just made me think how life is constantly changing. When you are busy and running you think your life will always be just as it is in that moment.  Nothing really stays the same so why worry. 

It seemed weird to me today that I am the happiest I have ever been with myself. I am not worrying or wanting things to be different than they are right now. I can't improve on anything and I can look back at the past without wishing things had been different. I feel at peace knowing that day to day things are going to change.  Something is always shifting whether we notice or not. 

I am not the person I was before for good or bad.  I couldn't stay the person everyone expected me to be forever.  This was hard for me to accept. I was mad at myself for a long time because that person didn't exist any longer.  I thought if I just acted like she did then I could find the person I was before. I felt like I was wearing an old heavy wet coat around. I have given myself permission to be happy and celebrate the person that I am and quit trying so hard to improve. 

I enjoyed my little road trip today more than I ever have.  It was beautiful even in the rain and I was alone and content to just listen to the music and be free.