I was at the grocery store the other day purchasing food for a youth grad event, about an hour before I needed to be there and I STOPPED.  I couldn’t go forward; I couldn’t go back.  I had no idea what to buy.  I was dizzy.  I couldn’t see or think clearly.

I knew in my heart, I didn’t want to be there in that moment.  I simply had had enough.  It’s not the work itself per se, nor the amount of work- it was the deep-rooted anger I felt DEEP in my heart directed DIRECTLY at myself.

For right before that moment, standing there in that grocery store, I had been emailing to get paid for other work… I was scrambling, still fucking scrambling, for scraps where I could get them– at the age of 52.  Fifty-two. That anger stopped me.

I am too smart for this, too talented, too valuable, too underused, too old for this, too dumb to figure it out.  Too tired of still struggling.

I was done.  Trapped.  In that moment.  With the past weighing on me.  The old familiar.  So weary of it.

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly–. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

― Rainer Maria Rilke, The Panther

But the food was eventually bought.  The grad was amazing.  The youth were elated and celebrated.  Seeing their smiling faces I knew what the point of all the work is.  I always know that.  I am drawn, always drawn, to facilitating successful experiences for youth in my community.

But I also know, that frozen moment in time was a wake up call.

I need to take stock of how far I’ve come, take stock of the unbelievable leaps forward.  Knowing, I can no longer accept a scarcity frame of mind.

THAT IS THE CHANGE I MUST NOW MAKE.  To change my neural pathways so they don’t keep charging with the familiar fear of mind- scarcity.

The connections I have been making in the community are coming to fruition.  I am reaching out.  And it’s working.  I am collaborating, and it’s working.  I am asking for help and it’s working.

I celebrate the amount of work it has taken me to get me to this point of STARTING FRESH.

So despite the frozen moment, asking myself, no… yelling at myself- WHY ARE YOU STILL IN THIS SPOT?, I breathed into it, laughed it out, and realized-

I AM NOT IN THE SAME SPOT, motherfucker.  I am about to fly.  I have not been dumb.  I have been BUILDING.

PREPARING.

READY TO LIVE IN THE ABUNDANT STATE OF MIND.

I got some incredible and timely gifts from my friend, Laura, yesterday.  And could the quotes be any more perfect for this moment, right here, RIGHT NOW?

My friend, Patti, reminds me to allow the unknown.  To rest in the don’t know mind.  And that tool is working.

I know it’s never perfect.  It never will be.  It’s deliciously imperfect.  And unresolved.  And confusing.  And it is life.

The delicious BLOOD AND GUTS of LIFE.

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
…live in the question.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet