bridges

After so many months spent adjusting to new life rhythms this year, these past few weeks have brought me all-new paths to travel. Ryan is still away on tour (but coming home soon!), and being home without him always requires adjustments. And what is normally my very part-time job has needed me full-time. I am happy to say it is a job I love, and I count myself so lucky in this. But being so much busier has thrown so much else up into the air. So many of the patterns I have established over all these months have been set aside, let go in favor of the pressing work at hand. It feels like I am losing hold of all that I have been reaching toward all these months. It makes me anxious to let these things go, even for a time- I am afraid that I will lose ground or not be able to find my way again later.

All this upheaval in my daily life patterns leaves me feeling like I am neither here nor there, which is perhaps one of my most challenging obstacles. This interruption of my established "flow" sets everything on edge, and especially my creativity. I had just begun to feel more in control, more firmly on my way toward reaching my creative ambitions. Part of me longs for things to be back as they were. But I can recognize so much good in some of these changes, so much inspiration and sense of purpose as I spend my days in new ways. Just because these new paths are uncomfortable at times does not mean they are not good for me. And maybe the longing for things-as-they-were is exactly what will keep the fires of my creativity stoked and burning brightly. 

It occurred to me yesterday, as I sat down to write my morning pages, that perhaps I should visualize myself on a bridge right now. This place where I now find myself is clearly in-between where I have been and where I will go next. I felt like my feet were on solid ground before, and that was the side of the bridge where I entered. Now I am in between. I cannot settle in here, or establish lasting patterns from this current place. I know that where I am right now is not going to last much longer. And I do not yet know where the bridge will lead me next. I can not see the other side clearly, to know what ground it is that will support my feet next. But it is the nature of bridges to lead you somewhere - this much I know.

And while I fear the process of letting-go which stepping onto the bridge requires, I am grateful for the perspective I gain in looking back on the ground that supported me before. I am grateful for the sense of longing I feel, this deep-seated desire to get back to my creative practice. I appreciate that ground more than I did before, and I have high hopes for the ground I will discover on the other side of the bridge, hoping that I am being led somewhere even more wonderful than before. I look forward to planting myself again on that new ground, using all the gifts of learning I have gained through this perspective. And so instead of letting panic reign as I am suspended high above the water, I will try to soak in all that I am seeing and learning and experiencing in this crossing. I will try to let go and love the in-between.