Finding My New Path in Life

It’s been a long time since I've sat at my home computer to write, what feels like ages in blogging terms where communication moves so fast you feel like a slug if you respond in less than 24 hours. I’m back from a vacation in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, the lands of my ancestors, the cities my father lived and walked, the places he took my mother during their courtship.

This trip has been life changing and life affirming. It has been a salve, and a glue. It felt like a month, but was two short weeks. I climbed mountains spilling over with waterfalls, ventured into caves, toured the Adriatic coast of Croatia and glacial lakes of Slovenia, I traveled the serpentine roads of war-ravaged Bosnia, I spoke to the people in their language. I ate the food, drank the wine, danced the dances. The whole shebang.

I had the time of my life. I wrote a post recently about how change is not affecting me like it used to, but change is continuing to happen, almost against my will. It’s exciting, but for the first time I’m accepting change with a peace and calm previously unknown. I don’t know if it is because I’m older, married, making tough career decisions, or saw my father pass away. I don’t know if these life passages make change easier or what. I don’t know if it’s a natural progression. I only know I’ve never felt this way.

I feel like I’m stepping into a completeness I never imagined I would have. Not because it's not possible, but because it's reserved for people a bit more sane than I. More deserving. I don’t know if it’s because I’m embracing faith, I don’t know if it’s because I’m letting old wounds heal, I don’t know if it’s because I’m letting hackneyed arguments fade. I don’t know.

I don’t know why I feel this way. It feels incredible, yet mundane. Still. Of this world. Grounded in reality. Whole and contented. On the right path.

Is it because I’ve strayed from myself for so long, that this is what it feels like to be true to myself? Is this what all those writers I’d been drawn to my whole life also experienced and wanted to share, and I’d rail against them in disbelief? Is this what my parents had wanted for me? Is this what I’ve always wanted and now it’s here?

I’m reluctant to say yes. I’m scared that an affirmation will break the spell. You know, like when you are told to make a wish which will only come true if you promise not to breathe a word of it? I’m frightened that if I tell you that I’ve become happy that it will all fizzle and fade because I’ve courted fear and forboding for so long.

I don’t expect to be floating on a bliss-cloud forever. But even drudgery feels different. The bad experiences I have had lately don’t feel like they were tailor-made to crush and beat me down. They feel more like the natural bumps on the path of a well-worn life. This is the point. I’m back on the path. I’m moving forward. I’m not stopped and stuck on the side of the road, seeing life ahead and refusing to go with it. I got back on my horse.

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