Freedom.

Endings. Transitions. I think for a long time I lived in fear of them. Never pathological fear, mind you. Not a phobia or an incapacitation. And when it comes down to it I think I’ve actually handled most endings and transitions in my life with a degree of ease, and as I’ve gotten older even some grace. Most of them at least. Some endings cause ripping, gut wrenching pain that takes you out of commission for some undetermined amount of time. Some make you question your sanity. Some just leave you empty.

We fear endings. Cringe. Avoid the truth of their inevitability. The heart’s memory is strong and it cannot exclude what the mind so easily erases.

I think that maybe when you’ve been tossed around enough, had the rug pulled out from under you enough you start to just give up on the notion that you can control it. Prevent it from happening again. You start to loosen your grip. You laugh.

It will happen again. It is coming. Another shift in the cycle. Another turn of events. All of those cliches about change being the only constant and blah blah blah… well, they exist for a reason.

And then there’s a moment when…you finally feel the truth of it down in your bones, in every tissue, every hidden spot you’ve tried to ignore:  yes, in fact, everything will change and is in fact always changing. Everything will go.  Transformation will happen. Your lover will leave. The relationship will change. You will change houses. You will lose your favorite ring or thing or give it to someone else. You will, in fact, lose it all, whether in one drastic sweep or in increments over time. You will die. So will they. The order of operations is what has yet to have been revealed. The convenience or lack thereof.

And then you start to feel it… the absolute ecstasy of  impermanence and the presence that reveling in it brings begins to emerge… something shifts… 

And when you can laugh in the face of it all, embrace it, feel the terror and exhilaration of life’s inherent uncertainties dancing together in your gut, being spewed at you through media and conversation and lore, spiraling into great bursts of libido and lust and creativity, grounding you here in your body, arms wide open to the paradoxes and pitfalls…

When you can greet that unknowing with great glee and fully bouncing belly  and move forward anyway, knowing that part of the experience of a fully lived life is having those moments of dice rolling while that one lyric runs through your head (“Take these chances…place them in a box until a quieter time, lights down you up and die…”)… and you can just follow your heart…

Well, something arises there. Something glistens and begins to take form as you laugh your way through it, relinquishing the notion of ultimate control, reminding yourself to breathe and soak in the radical hilarity and total chaos of existing on a giant ball hurtling through space…

…and you realize what it is that’s arising…
Freedom.

 

 

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