52 Weeks (or The Time I Chose to Follow My Dreams)
I have a tradition that I do around Memorial Day each year.
It began in 2016. Memorial weekend was a total gift that year. I’d just lost Brent that January, and after a long, cold, grief filled winter, the warm sunshine and blue skies that graced the last bit of May were medicine for my heart.
So were the flowers I bought in profusion that weekend. Cherry blooms, daffodil buds, purple pansies spilling out of their baskets— I turned the front porch and back patio into an enchanted garden, and I spent Memorial Day sitting on my porch in the sunshine, writing, drawing and enjoying time with my husband and our fur kids.
I was going through a deep process of transformation at the time.
My grief journey had rendered me a different being and awakened a part of myself who desired to live with greater freedom and authenticity. I had found the courage to put together my first book of poetry and submit it for publication, and I felt a deep desire to create and expand my writing and art.
I also had a lot of spiritual transformation that had happened. I often sensed Brent’s spirit and felt more assured than ever that the unseen world is very real and able to communicate with us. My intuition was growing in leaps and bounds, and I craved further growth and understanding of my gifts.
My life in Alaska had begun to feel too small, and I felt like I kept having to squeeze myself into it. I felt trapped in my life, trapped in my job— just trapped in general, though I didn’t fully know why.
What I did know, on that perfect Memorial Day of gardening, sunshine, and love, is that I wanted more moments like this in my life. More space, more creativity, more nature, more sunshine and more freedom to feel all that is wild within me.
The next day driving to work, as I squeezed myself into my small silver Jetta, squeezed myself into the crowded lanes of traffic, and prepared to head to the office- which felt cramped and dreary after my weekend of freedom- I had a deep sense of heaviness and fatigue, and I realized that I didn’t ever want to feel this way again.
I vowed to myself that by this time next year I would completely change my life: 52 weeks. 52 weeks. I vow I will not be here in 52 weeks.
My husband and I had already been talking about moving to Kauai and this was the catalyst that had me coming home at lunch and saying: Let’s move to Kauai by this time next year.
In all actuality, it took 56 1/2 weeks to move to the island, but the following year on the Tuesday after Memorial Day, I drove to the office with a decidedly lighter heart.
Everything was in motion. The house was on the market. We had plane tickets to fly out on July 10th, and I only had four more weeks of work.
I marveled to myself that I was doing it— I had set out to make a dream a reality, and we were so close I could already taste the salty breeze and smell the ocean’s kind grace.
The year I made my 52 weeks vow, I wrote about my decision to change my life and move and that piece of writing later ended up in Lamentations of The Sea. So, it only seemed apropos that I honor the anniversary of the decision and write a follow up piece reflecting on all that had transpired in a year’s time.
And thus a tradition was born. Memorial Day weekend became an anniversary and reflection point for me where I write a piece about where life is now. Both 2018 and 2019’s offerings have made it into my upcoming book, Revelations of The Sky, and build a bridge to answer the question of—“What came next?”
Because I discovered that the story I’m writing with my life is so very different than the story I thought I was writing. I thought the focus of the story was on the decision to move here and the courage it took to leap. I thought the focus would be on the triumphant choice point I reached where I finally gave myself permission to say yes to my dreams.
And that is a very good story and one that was worth telling in Lamentations. But I keep living the truth that any ending is just a beginning, and I now know that this was never meant to be a “she moved to Kauai and lived happily ever after story."
The bigger story is about what happened when I arrived here. How struggle and hardship transformed me. How I learned that saying yes to becoming the highest expression of myself meant I was going to have to dissolve prior selves in order to create a new elixir of deeper authenticity and healing.
How I came to understand the heart of the universe in bigger, more meaningful ways, because I was pushed so far out of my old bounds on self, I had no choice but to rely on my intuition and spirit to guide.
My story is not a story of immediate success or manifestation. But it is a story of radical transformation.
Wrapping back around to where this post began— Memorial Day is a reflection point for me that mirrors my growth and transformation. When I wrote that last sentence I felt called to stop and go look up the essay I wrote this time last year, and these words jumped out at me to share:
This is where I find myself this Memorial Day weekend: Far away from that girl who fervently uttered 52 weeks! in 2016. Far away from the girl in 2017 who was tiredly, but triumphantly five weeks away from moving to Kauai and pulling off the biggest change of my life.
Far away from the girl of a year ago, who was still churning with questions over who she was and what she is called to Kauai to do. The girl who was about to have her heart broken upon the rock of Sam’s loss, travel through another grief journey and come out the other side on new shore.
Those experiences may feel far away, yet all of those versions of self, needed to be seen and understood in order to bring them deeper inside and integrate them into my being, so I could keep moving forward.
Here it is a year later, and more integration and movement has happened since, though I’m finding that this particular weekend my need to reflect on the past, so I can understand and integrate the journey, doesn’t feel overly pressing.
Mostly I just feel present. As if I’ve been through a long cycle of change with multiple rites of passage and spiritual initiations, which cleared tremendous space in my heart and in my life.
I’ve been writing about how I feel something is going to land in this new space, but I sense it might not be until end of June/July, so for now— I’m just staying open, curious and receptive.
This weekend, I choose joy, play and ease. Watermelon, ice-cream cones, and veggie dogs on thick buns with extra mustard and dill relish please.
And I choose to trust in a vision I was given. These words came to me back in April, one of many channeled messages that affirms everything is adding up, everything is working together, everything is moving me (and each of us) in the direction I need to go.
I choose to share them here, because a year from now, on Memorial Day Weekend 2021, I want to be able to return to this moment, return to myself in this space of limbo where I sense I’m about to cross a threshold and breakthrough in bigger ways on my journey.
I choose to share them here to remind anyone who reads them that magic is real, spirit is always speaking and each of us has our own divine purpose to fulfill:
Soon it will be summer. Soon it will be sunrise. Soon it will be time for lightness and embracing the simple pleasures of being. Soon you will see so much joy. Soon you will know the instructions of your soul and receive guidance that fills you with purpose and pleasure.
Soon it will add up and you will see the beautiful genius, the unique art of your path.
Soon it will be easier in a way you understand as easy. Soon you will see what good things are planned for you.
Soon you will be like a bee enjoying the nectar of the fruits you’ve blossomed. Soon, soon, soon. This is a message of hope for you. A message of love, peace and prosperity. A message to soothe your heart and cover your weariness with renewed hope.
All you need do to receive this is breathe, be, keep going. Keep talking to us. We are here. We are with you. We are guiding you.
Last summer I was about to learn that either I trust the messages I channel in my heart, or I don’t trust and can engage in an exhausting mental struggle of doubt and fear.
I’ve learned to choose the path of trust, and I have no doubt these words will coalesce when the time is right, because soon it will be summer, and I don’t know what summer will bring, but I can intuitively feel something is close— just beyond reach, and it feels deeply connected to the timing of eclipse season and the next few moon cycles.
For once, I’m not trying to grab for it or figure it out before it’s time. To be honest, whatever it is I’m sensing feels so profound that I don’t think I could miss it if I tried, I just have to stay open and receptive.
After all, the dreams in our hearts are a living thing, because our dreams are our deepest truth and truth is always alive in love, which means our dreams want to come to life. They are seeking us as much as we are seeking them.
They want to come out, breathe and grow into material form, and the more we focus on letting go of how we think things should look, the more the universe can assist us in creating them.
We just have to keep listening to our hearts, taking steps as we feel called to step, and knowing that following our dreams is how we dream the world our heart yearns for into being.
