June 7, 2012

So, it's official. We are moving to Utah.

Of course, it is something we had considered doing for a long time, however, were never quite that brave, held that much courage within us, to make such a move; a move across the country, creating a physical distance between our friends and family, stepping out in to the unknown and away from the everyday familiar.

I am much more a creature of habit than my husband. I am much more the kind of person who goes along the thinking of - you go to college, get a good enough job with good enough insurance, get a good enough paycheck, live in a good enough house, drive a good enough car, and so forth. But eventually (and hopefully) we all get to a point where we have to realize that life is pretty short and good enough is unacceptable. As well as rather boring.

Of course, we are happy. Our kids our happy. Our marriage is solid. And yet there is a calling to us to change our normal, to open ourselves to the potential of something different and all the gifts that lie in waiting for us, to dig in to something unfamiliar, something new.

A friend of mine recently emailed me a quote. It read: “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”

I do not believe we can truly live until we live out loud. I do not believe we can deepen our soul until we step out and put into question what defines who we think we are. Who are you without your job? Without the role you play in the organizations you participate in? Who are you when all is stripped away and you stand before the energies of the universe? Will you ever be in your death bed, with your last breath just around the corner, grateful about all the chances you let slip away and relived about all the risks you didn't take? Or perhaps it might be the other way around.

If you were to shed one tear, one single tear, on your death bed, what would be within that tear? Would the universe within that tear be full of the joy you received because of the risks you did take, because of the love you gave even when it left you vulnerable, full of the wonder that comes from taking a risk and the rewards that follow? Or maybe that tear is full of all the regrets you have because you did not take those risks, you stayed close to the trunk of the tree instead of getting out there on that skinny branch, and that one tear is from the sadness from what “might have been.”

I know what is going to be in the last tear I shed. It will be gratitude. It will be a tear filled with the last little but of love I have to give because, at that point, I will be all out. I will be all used up and worn out in a way that mattered to me and to the ones I love.

I would rather be ashes than dust.

I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze

than it should be stifled by dry-rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow,

than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.

~Jack London