The Swell Season

These last few weeks I’ve had a lot weighing heavy on me.

Over the course of several years, thanks to sobriety and being diagnosed with a brain cyst my life has taken some giants turns.  They haven’t been bad, difficult at times, yes, they’ve helped me grow and become the person I am today, someone I like, with interests very different then in the past, less selfish, more spiritual, calmer, eager to learn and share with others.

After several years of growing, I’ve reached a turning point in my life.  Fear is holding me in place; my spirituality is concentrating on my higher power to help point me in the right direction.  I feel as if over the past few weeks my heart is leading me to my final decision.

Since May of 2010 I have had the pleasure of not working a 9-5 job.  It’s been an adventure that allowed me to explore sobriety, growing and what I want out of life.  For many years I had no idea what I wanted, I basically worked because the jobs came, I needed to keep a roof over my head, at times to provide one over others and I wanted nice things. 

The past 20 months my life has changed immensely, especially after finishing my 200 hour yoga training, my spirituality grew deeper through studying, I want to give back to people through yoga but also study more about religion, spirituality and the threads that connect so many in this world.   Through the death of my beloved dog Fred I truly learned about death, struggled with my higher power and came to understand for myself that being on this planet is not about having tangible goods it’s being there for others.

At this moment I have collected goals for my life:

·      Study with the Urban Zen Intensive Training

·      Return to college to study comparative religion

·      Join the Peace Corps

·      Be there for my family

·      Finish writing my book by Dec 31, 2012

·      Begin to utilize the education I am going receive to move into my future life

All of these goals are doable.  I’ve never had goals before; this is also frightening, as a good portion of them need financial backing which I currently can’t provide for myself currently.

I don’t discuss my finances with anyone.  Truth be told I spent years doing damage, spending beyond my means, being irresponsible and it’s caught up with me.  Each month I struggle to pay my debts and living expenses, it’s my own private terror.  In the past few months I’ve had to cancel my heath care because I just can’t afford it.  In doing so I hear this from those I choose to discuss this with, “OMG, you have to have health insurance, you have a cyst on your brain,” thank you for pointing that out.  I am aware every moment of the day that I live with something that can explode in my head, possibly killing me, paralyzing me or leaving me unable to speak, think, or remember.  I am full aware I need health insurance; the problem is I honestly can’t afford it and even with the small amount of work I take in now to cover the bills I make too much money to qualify for assistance. 

Honestly I don’t want to go back working full time doing something that I will be miserable doing just for a paycheck and health insurance.  That is not living to me now.  It would be the easy thing to do, but I’ve found my goals and I want to achieve them.

In order to achieve my goals I need to change my life drastically and lucky for me I have an option.  At the moment I’m 98% convinced that moving to Michigan to live with my family (yes at almost 40 years old) is my best option.  My father has been urging me to do so for a while, he needs help with the family business and none of my other siblings are interested.  Not that the family business is of huge interest for me but being able to be there for my cancer surviving 66 year old father who really works hard, won’t retire and loves golf would be a big honor.  As well recently, which is the clincher, my 95-year-old Grandmother (Dad’s mom) moved about a mile away from my Dad in an assisted living facility.  For many years I’ve wished that I could spend more time with both of these people.  My Dad is my Grandmother’s primary care giver and with his full time work it seems that he could use the extra set of hands.  Moving to live with him would allow me to be of service to two people that are very important to me, I was taken away from them as a child and never got to spend the time I would have liked, this is my time and I don’t want to regret not doing it.  This also allows me to work for my father, pay off my debt and begin to attend school.  I could also continue teaching yoga & volunteering in the community, plus I’ve discovered the Urban Zen program has an intensive at Omega from the end of August until the end of October, which would give me my certification in integrated health care.

It’s a lot to take in.  As I said I’m 98% ready to make this step.  It’s a giant change, for the first time in my life I feel as if I’m working toward my future and not just paying for my past. 

As much as I love New York I feel as if there is nothing here for me anymore, it doesn’t feel like the future I want.  Speaking to a friend last night she said, “you can always come back to New York,” it’s true, but I’m slow detaching from my life here and feel as if my adventure is in front of me, it’s just in another location.