reconciliation

some nights you can feel insomnia sneak slowly up the back stairs–creaking a loose board, bumping into the rail, then slipping open the back door that i was sure i had locked. but tonight is not that kind of night. tonight insomnia shattered through wood and glass, launched itself across the kitchen, and bounded squarely on top of my bed and heart. i never even bothered turning out the light. i knew sleep would never come.

for the record, this is not how i wanted to welcome in the new year. sleepless and tired. restless and jaded. this is a time for fresh starts and resolutions. optimism. hope. at the very least this is when i should be getting a jump start on my new year's resolution of giving myself one of the primary building blocks to health and a happy life: sleep.

but we don't always get what we want. we don't always get what we deserve. we don't always get the answer or clarity or truth even when we ask for it. and deep disappointment has joined hands with insomnia to guarantee a long night dedicated to asking why and why not?

i find myself looking back to exactly a year ago, to the person i was inside my skin, a nomad eating pho in seattle one night, boarding a transcontinental plane with a compass and empty red travel journal the next, flying across the world to a fantastic city far away and embarking on a month that still means so much to me as insulated by distance and time as it now feels. and in particular, i go back to this moment looking out the airplane, when i turned toward the window to hide a rush of hopelessness and tears and immediately was presented a shooting star and the northern lights. and the voice inside my head accompanying the vision was calm and crystal clear: you are grieving but there is no need...all will be well...all will work itself out...this is your sign... 

i spent the next long while, tears instantly dried, watching in wonder as aurora borealis shared her glory.

and i have done my best. i have spent 2012 listening to that voice, listening to the truth resonating so clearly inside of me despite what prudence or reason would suggest. this voice is the essence of how i have always preached we should live our life: with our heart, our intuition, our gut, and through our vulnerability. and in this year i have made some great friends along that path, pushed them further along in their life and in turn been pushed myself, welcomed the magic of a gorgeous home space, and finally, with the help of several of you, begun the journey toward telling the story of sieve.

i realize all that should be proof that it's working, it's a successful way to live, but today, now, as i turn toward a new year, i also must consider a different way of life. one of reconciliation.

it's an attempt to acknowledge that my heart is a tender, optimistic organ, capable of clearer sight than i have ever imagined, but one that has been known to be mislead {by myself as much as others} and at the very least, too consistently open for repeat bruising. in the end, she must learn to live in the same body as my mind and the two have been in conflict, this entire year particularly, seeing the same life from very different perspectives. it's time compromises must be made.

and tonight.

now.

right now.

i begin the process of reconciliation: balancing the sight of the heart with the {hopefully} grounded, logic of the mind. i don't know how to do this without withdrawing from the realm of the heart altogether but i just have to trust that in the wake of this year of failure, this is the only way forward i haven't tried. the only way to find any sort of clarity and balance. i trust that the voices reflecting my life back to me will tell me if i go astray, but at the moment, i am so done with the arguments between what the two voices tell me. so done.

wish me luck on sleep and have a happy new year, however it welcomes itself into your life. my hope is that 2013 steps forward into my life with honesty, openness, and tenderness.

god, i long for tenderness. where has its soft caress gone?