All Stop

So many things that were imperatives not long ago, just don’t feel very important any more.  The election is over, the post-election wailing and gnashing of teeth have subsided (well, at least I’m not paying attention to it any more…) Peace inhabits a corner of my life that was decidedly NOT peaceful a few short weeks ago.  Perhaps it was the last little corner of non-peace in my life.  Because once the ripples from that last rock thrown into the pond dissipated, peace spread across and throughout my life.     

Peace.  That has become my top priority.  For five years, it was the impossible dream.  There was no peace, no rest, no freedom from the endless list of things I needed to do and never got accomplished.  And then the café went away and for many months, tired as I was, I just couldn’t STOP.  You know how they say it takes a freight train over a mile to stop after someone hits the brakes?  The weight of all that baggage moving forward at 55 miles an hour …you can stand on those brakes all you want, but that train will grind forward every inch of a mile and more—and it’s going to flatten anything in its path —before it slows, and slows; and finally squeals to a stop.

I think that it has stopped, now.  All is quiet and still.

I never got all my feelings about the restaurant sorted out.  But I don’t feel like I have to anymore.  It’s not important.  That whole pile of emotional debris I was sure I would have to wade through, and that other pile of the things I thought I needed to be or do now that I was free of the ball and chain—the things that I kept trying on like different outfits and discarding because they just didn’t fit—are gone.  Squashed under the wheels of the train that couldn't stop. 

They don’t seem to matter anymore.  I don’t look for a job, I don’t collect cooking magazines and try out new recipes, I don’t press the husband toward a better relationship, I haven’t come up with a new concept for a business; I don’t write, I haven't found a hobby, I don't work out;  I haven’t completely embraced a new or specific spirituality.  I just AM.  I am letting myself BE. 

 I am not the person I was (which is good) and I am not the person I will be (whoever that is, and whenever that happens.)


Tweny years ago, maybe I could have pulled a "Butch Cassidy" and jumped off the train while it was still moving.  Now...not so much.  And I never realized it was going to take quite this long.  But here we are at last. 

And  I have no clue what comes next.  Definitely not a bad thing.