Days Numbered

April 1, 2018. #244 

For the last eight months or so this is how every one of my journal entries has begun: with the date and a number. I started counting my days last summer when my "new" life began. At that point I had no idea how I would make it as a single mom with two kids--working and maintaining the only home that we have known. It felt like a huge free-fall into the unknown. While a significant chapter was ending I decided one day, definitively,  that it would be the first day of the rest of my life. Day #1. This is how my counting started and in my journal that day I began to create my new reality by re-claiming the space around me as my own: add a floor lamp to the corner of the bedroom, clean out the closet under the stairs, move the white bookcase from the office to the living room, buy new sheets. . . .  It was a simple list that served as a map for my next steps. Everyday since then I have added to this list and have challenged myself to expand my vision of what is possible. 

​Starting over in this way has given me a palpable sense of creative control over what will happen next in my life. The ability to consciously choose what I really want both physically and emotionally. The linear structure of counting my days keeps me moving forward and offers a realistic perspective on what I can manage to accomplish or experience within the scope of a single day. Accumulating these days over the course of a week and a month has been an amazing experiment in recognizing how real change happens: organically, gradually and systematically with diligent attention to the generative action that needs to be taken and the toxic strongholds that need to be surrendered.

Over the course of this last year I feel like I have crossed an ocean: surfing the waves of grief, diving into the depths of despair and then breaking the surface to breathe in moments of the most exquisite joy and to behold an entirely new horizon. I have felt my future as the blueprint of my own soul beckoning me to keep counting--to come back to today when I get distracted, fearful or confused. Keep hold of the thread and step into each day with courage and trust. I am growing in intimacy with the understanding that true fulfillment is an art that unfolds as we are willing to live in ways that summon our inherent creative potential--to be wholly ourselves. When we challenge our limited perspectives in any moment and lean more heavily into the edge of what is unknown to us as a frontier of freedom, we train ourselves to become pioneers moving ahead with a greater purpose for our lives. We sacrifice the well worn trails of conditioned habit for new pathways of discovery.   

Day #244: Easter. Time to rise. Today I rise above my current situation for a moment and see the bigger picture. I can see that I am on the edge of a breakthrough--don't stop now. Doubt and fear will always be present but I get to choose my focus-this is part of my power now. Will I be the victim or victorious? I can focus on the old story that believes nothing will ever change and I'll always be stuck here. Or I can focus on the fact that anything is possible now that everything has changed. What single thought will serve my highest self now?

I concluded my first journal entry last year asking myself how I most wanted to spend the first day of the rest of my life. I decided that I would live it like it was my last: full of joy, deeply grateful and completely at peace knowing that I have lived and loved with my whole self. Today I am on the edge of another unknown threshold and I give myself completely to this miraculous journey. There are no mistakes and everything serves a greater purpose. The past is over and I am free to experience a future far beyond my wildest dreams. Today I begin again.

I am open to whatever is coming next. . .