"Be confused. It's where you begin to learn new things. Be broken, it's where you begin to heal. Be frustrated, it's where you start to make more authentic decisions. Be sad, because if we are brave enough we can hear our heart's wisdom through it. Be whatever you are right now."  (S.C. Lourie)

How often do I sit in the moment-ness of my emotions? Where am I open to both the earth-shattering surrender and the quiet nudge? When do I pause and ask "Now what?"

When my favorite aunt, my father's sister, died, I felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach. It wasn't unexpected - she'd been ill, though blessedly it was a fairly swift decline. I'd had the opportunity to tell her I loved her, knowing it would likely be the last time. And, as she said, at 86, "You didn't expect me to live forever, did you?" Well, yes, I'd kind of hoped...

When I got word that she'd passed, I went up to Forest Park, in need of both nature and a good sweat. I turned off Leif Erickson onto a steep trail I usually avoided, grateful for the pain in my legs and my lungs. About halfway up, I sat on a bench, staring at the wall of evergreens just ahead. I was barely aware of my own panting, or the forest's chatter. In some sort of trance, I had the sensation of being in the extreme here-and-now, the fourth dimension that we read about, but rarely experience. I'm not describing it well - spiritual experiences are tough to put into words - and the instant I became conscious that I was in an altered state, it dissipated, but the memory of it is clear. I was confused. I was broken. I was sad. And that's all that I was in those moments.

Being in that liminal space between dream and awake, the living and the dead, then and now,  reminds me of a visual once given to me by a therapist to illustrate transition from one state of being to another. She described being on the monkey bars as a kid, that moment when you've let go of one rung, but haven't quite reached the next. For just that second, you are suspended, in-between. We talk about it in AA as the hallway - when HP closes a door, She opens a window, but you need to get out of the hall. Not so quickly, I would say. Maybe where I grow is in that in-between space - in-between my mother's life and fully accepting that she is gone; in-between coupled and single, or conversely, single and married; in-between being loaded and sober, working and retired, young and old... I speak of these in-betweens as mental states - that place of transition where I haven't quite let go of the old way of being but haven't fully grasped who I'm supposed to be now. "Be frustrated - it's where you start to make more authentic decisions."

I sat with my Cabal on Monday, a tiny group that is growing old together. We often talk about what is happening to our bodies and our states of mind, trying not to wonder too hard about what comes next. I so appreciate this, and other small groups of those I've known over time. We saw each other come in to recovery, riding that roller-coaster to a good life. Not a perfect life, but a good life.

I'm not as maudlin as my post might suggest. I've actually been feeling energized and chock full of hopeful anticipation. But hearing the above quote today, took me to past places where I was unsure and unsettled, those places of accepting a new reality. I am grateful for inspiration, for those portals to memories of those times that shook my foundation. What do you think of when you read the opening statement, whether it is a past transition or current?