PicoBlog

We hold the keys to the cages we build around ourselves.

Eleven words that tumbled out of my mouth three years ago when put on the spot at a speakers conference. Eleven words that would go on to be a key theme in my first book. Eleven words that will echo in my life forever.

The problem? Sometimes we get so caught up in the rhythms of life that we forget where we put the keys.

Perhaps we lay them down on the desk filled with career ambitions and financial expectations. Perhaps we leave them in the closet filled with sequin dresses and social pressures. Perhaps they ended up on the floor where we cried that one morning during yoga.

Sometimes it requires the help of another to look around and remind us where we left them. Remind us that the places that once felt confined yet comfortable, are the cages keeping us from being fully alive.

If you are new here, welcome. This is the place where I search and write about the meaning of human connection. From the small moments to the momentous earthquakes of life. In part one of this series, I Woke Up This Way, I explore an unexpected life change that came virtually overnight. And now…the aftermath.

It is a strange reality to look in the mirror one morning, seeing the same eyes stare back at you, but knowing everything behind them has changed. I struggled with the question - If I no longer want the far away destination adventures and the comfortable discomfort of global service work, then what replaces them? Certainly I am not built for a completely routinized life, am I?

And then I met someone who reminded me where I left my keys and inspired me to open the door to the cage I had been hiding in for years. He wasn’t a profound guru looking to help me on this journey. But rather, simply a beautiful soul who held up a mirror tilted at a slightly different angle, allowing me to see myself in a way I had not previously.

I have spent two decades wearing independence like a badge of honor. I grew it honestly, with no falsivity, healing myself from life’s traumas by seeing and serving others. I built a toolkit filled with the unique mix of travel saavy, fearlessness, and unflappable calm and industriousness in chaos. I had transformed my unused motherly instincts to nurture those afar rather than near. I said yes, nay…sprinted toward any adventure, regardless of what or who I left at home. And still, for better or worse, I would not trade a moment of it.

Then, in the briefest of moments, I had a chance to turn that nurturing energy on someone close. To hold and be held, metaphorically and literally, and a switch flipped. Perhaps all that mourning at the end of previous adventures was because I had not built anything lasting. I had seen and loved and nurtured others, but came home with nothing in return. And rather than rethink my connections to home, I quickly turned my gaze to the next quest. The next hit of emotional dopamine from connection in a far away land.

What if all this independence was actually as much a liability as an asset? A hinderance rather than the path to happiness. What would life be like if I opened up my heart and rebuilt a life based on home first, far away second? What if I took off my independence cape and laid down my sword and shield? Perhaps then my arms would be free to hug more, hold more.

And like a pendulum on a grandfather clock, in that tilted mirror, I saw it swinging its inevitable reverse. The clock chimes a soundtrack for turning the page. It was time for me to come home. To a home that doesn’t currently exist, and must be built from scratch. Time to realign my life around a future that looks distinctly different from the past.

I didn’t ask for a mid-life awakeneing but I got one anyway. And boy what a beautiful one it is turning out to be.

And stay tuned, for that tilted mirror had one more lesson to show me.

To be continued…

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