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| Floating at one of my favourite places at home... Meech Lake |
In my travels over the past few years… visiting friends and relatives, couch surfing, house sitting, dog watching, cat chasing, and chef in residence stints at friends places where I cook for a place to stay… I have wondered where home really is.
I always thought it was a physical bricks and mortar location. I thought I was happy when I went from apartment to bigger apartment to home owner. However, there was always something bugging me about this as I wasn’t truly happier. In fact, I felt there were more stresses and pressures, of paying more rent or a big mortgage, of fixing the endless things that seem to go wrong or you want to ignore because it will involve more cash outlay.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my places and would spend lots of time agonizing over how to place things, what colour to paint the walls, finding the right accents, and going to Ikea to get the right storage device so I could make my places seem lighter and more open like in the catalogues. Looking back, it was a bit stressful to own so much, always wanting more, and finding ways to make more room for the things I did have.
When I decided to leave everything behind over two and half years ago... my home, my relationship, the restaurant, my career… it was a big decision but it didn’t seem as much as the right thing to do. I think most of the anxiety came in making the decision to do it, as is usually the case.
Everything became clear after my father's death. As would happen several times in my life, I was given the opportunity to wake up and start truly living my life, instead of listening to society's expectations of what I should be or giving into my fears.
With my dad's death, my heart broke and the sharp pain from the loss and grief was overwhelming at times. It felt like an open would, incredibly raw and tender, and I wanted to put a band aid over quickly it so others could not see it, including myself. But something inside me, told me to let it be exposed to the elements to heal, to breathe deeply, and I listened through the tears. And in doing so, breath by breath, I began to hear the quiet voices of the heart who kept on saying “come home” but I didn’t really understand what that meant.
Before my dad’s death, I wanted to live a more honest life and my word was "truth". In recent years, I've had words for periods of my life, as kind of a directional sign. I don’t like to lie, well I am prone to the little white lies like telling a friend that she looks great and everything will be ok when she looks horrible and you're really not sure what will happen.
Over time, I realized that I was a big liar! I was telling myself lies all the times!
I was lying about my life, who I was and what I could do. I loved parts of my life, but other parts not, and this was confusing and hard for me to come to terms with. My body started showing me the affects of this inner turmoil as it always does as the body does not lie. I want some sort of truth serum to set me free, release me from this life of lies.
I wanted to be happier, I needed to take care of myself, and I had to free my spirit, constricted by a demanding work life and relationship that was not working. I desperately wanted to hang on to the dream I had when I started the pop-up dinners and restaurant and craddle the baby that I created for me and the community. I felt there were no other choice but to be in relationship that was clearly beyond it’s best before date.
When I came back from Toronto after my dad's death, I did the thing that I most feared. I let go of my tight grip around these things that were depleting my energy levels and were not good for me anymore. And in doing so, I thought I would fall hard. I needed to let go of what I was so I could move forward into what I could become. Right, easier said then done! How does a caterpillar know when it's time to shed it's casing and become a butterfly? If it happens naturally, why can't we do the same when something or someone is no longer serving us? Perhaps we do have the same forces of nature and clues telling us to do something, but we choose to ignore them?
I started taking care of myself, loving myself and listening to my heart. It was hard work at first. I was resistant because I didn't truly love myself and therefore felt I didn’t deserve the nourishing things I was giving it. It was like a baby rejecting the milk of its own mother.
I am back home to Ottawa, but the greatest lesson I learned in all my wanderings and travels to date, is that home is where you are. I have been running away from home since I was a teenager and found safety then in that, and continued to repeat that pattern, thinking there could be danger in transitions as was the case when I was a teenager.
Only recently have I begun to understand how important transitions are to our growth and development, the spaces or pauses between things that seem solid and certain. In yoga, we are taught it's not only the asanas or poses that matter, but how we transition (thanks Phil!) and move with assurance and grace from one asana to another.
I have come home and am never leaving home wherever I may
travel. hOMe.
