I was told this would be a year of integration, and I feel that.

Sometimes I look back on life in Alaska, and how that life was no more the day we got on a plane and crossed the ocean to Kauai last July. I remember packing up the pieces of that life- those last few months were a cluster of stress and tears and anxiety and hope and something I couldn’t quite name.

I said good-bye to many people in person; others I just said good-bye in dreams. I detached and let go of many things, some easier than others. Sold my beloved little cottage of rainbow cheer and coziness. Closed my private practice, which had anchored and sustained me for over a decade.

Shed an old skin of self.

Some days I still wake up in wonder that I’m here. Walk the dog under the stars and slivers of crescent moon sky, which slowly fades to gray to dusk to blue. Palm trees sway and clouds make art in the air, and the gentleness of this land overwhelms, even as it soothes me and I ask the same question I ask every single day- “Why am I here, what next?”

Some days I feel the answer and my heart chakra opens in bursts of golds and pinks and purpose, and some days I just watch those palms sway.

It takes awhile to reintegrate when we’ve deconstructed any massive piece that was holding our life together. I figure this kind of major life transition deconstructed where I lived and who I was, and it was very much needed, even though the reconstruction isn’t always going as I planned.

That’s the thing about life though, it has its own thoughts and ideas and plans, and they don’t always match up to ours. And there is such space and vulnerability found when we learn to release our own expectation of how things should be and instead learn to trust in the unknown.

I’m learning to trust on deeper levels in Kauai. I thought I was already pretty good at that, but over here I am the student again, learning to say-

I trust I’ll have what I need for this day.

I trust in my own process of self, which is slowly integrating who I was with who I am becoming.

I trust all will unfold exactly as it should, even though I have no notion as to how it will unfold.

I trust. I trust. I trust.

Easier said than done, and yet trust is where I find myself. Not knowing. Not able to see very far along the path. And having some sense that something in me is trying to expand and grow and change even more, and I need to make sure I am keeping my soil watered and nourished to allow it room.

The other day I was chatting with the teacher after my exercise class- we’ve been sweating and burning and strengthening together for the last 6 months. One thing led to another, and we ended up on the topic that she had a group of women who wanted to do a women’s circle, but there was nobody who knew how to lead a circle.

I do, I said. This is why I came here, this is part of what I want to do.

And so we made a plan, and the circle will start next month, and I was left quietly reflecting on how life will show us the path when we put our intention out there, stay open, and give things space to happen. It’s not the whole path, but that pink and gold and purpose in my heart is all fluttery- – and I know it’s the next step.

I trust. I trust. I trust.