This is easier than I thought...Ok, I know it has only been four days...but I am doing really good. I feel affirmed. Something deep within me is being awakened. I can feel it. It is like I am being brought back to a part of myself that I walked away from a long time ago. In so many ways, I can feel myself becoming acquainted with myself again on a new level but there is something about the introduction that feels familiar.
The thought that keeps returning to me is that at age 10, I knew exactly who I was. I knew what I wanted, where I wanted to live, what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. I came home one day in 6th grade and converted my bedroom into an "apartment". I took my bed apart and made it into a couch. I created a desk that I set up to look a great deal like a law library. I was ready to move out and begin this new life. Only Problem was that I was only 10 and in 6th grade. The next 6 years at home would do a lot to convolute this vision. The years of middle school would erode this girl's sense of self. The high school years would cause her to lose her focus on what was really important to her. The demons from her past would haunt her in new ways requiring alcoholic sedation on an ever increasing basis.
But like a diamond that is buried under ground for decades, all that dirt did nothing to dampen the beauty inside. The gem is not discolored or damaged by its time underground. So here I am at 49 and I feel like I just dug up that 10 year old from the proverbial diamond mine. She is dirty and her shine is dusty but with a little polishing I think she will clean up well. In Buddhism they talk of Bodhichitta which means noble or awakened heart. It is the thing that exists in all of us and despite whatever life may envelope us in: crime, abuse, addiction, or self destruction; there is this core in us that remains unchanged. There is a place in us that can't ever be darkened by life's events. I am returning to that place. I thought I lost it but it has always been there and I am beginning to feel it. And it feels amazing and familiar and like I am returning to a place that I once dearly loved but could not quite find my way back to. I am going to keep going...
