I've been laid-off since April. I guess I got my wish - I've spent a lot of time reading, knitting, playing with my grandbabies, traveling. Job hunting. Exploring the possibilities and ramifications of self-employment.
I turn 50 in November, so I'm especially grateful for a wide range of things. First off, the fact that I'm turning 50. Also being able to spend the summer reflecting, meditating, reading, learning.
I've got an old Mennonite cookbook that ends each chapter with "Gathering the Fragments"; a brief description of what to do with the leftovers of some of the recipes in the section preceding. I feel like I've spent the summer 'gathering the fragments' of my life as I visit homes, haunts, schools and workplaces from my past. A lot of the pieces to my puzzle are dropping into place, I can see patterns taking form and it's comforting to know that there really is a reason for everything, it just might take a while and some quiet time to see it.
Today I drove past the house I lived in when I birthed my first child. I thought of the woman I was then - I could almost see myself in the garden - naive, scared, scarred (in more ways than one), my baby girl on my hip, and I cried out loud for that new mom - she had no idea what she was in for. What she was going to go through. What she most desperately wanted would never come to pass, but she didn't know it then. And she didn't know that one day, it wouldn't matter so much either.
Many years, many tears later I'd realize that nobody gets what they deserve, so if I'm getting something I think I want, I'm grateful for it, especially if I didn't have to work very hard to get it. I enjoy it while I have it (a love, a great job, a moment's peace, a comforting home, a cherished friendship) because it's all so very very temporary.
But I got something I never dreamed could be mine: a type of confidence or bravery that comes from the deep knowing that surviving is all anyone can really hope for, everything else is details. People are going to hurt me (and help me) and betray me (and trust me) and abandon me (and stay by me) exactly the way I do to them because we're all human.
The longer I live, the more I realize that I don't really know anything for sure, and neither does anyone else. We're all just monkeys with car keys. So I try to spread forgiveness around, and serve myself up a plate of it from time to time.
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