Waiting to exhale

I made it.  Yesterday is over.  I’m grateful for all the support and love I’ve received from everyone.  It’s a reminder to me – in the past I wouldn’t usually say anything, so I wouldn’t get any support.  Just goes to show what happens when I let myself be vulnerable – amazing angels show up in my world!

It probably won’t be much of a surprise for regular readers to hear that I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the last month or so.  Today I finally put all the pieces together and saw an annual pattern.  It only took 12 years to figure it out.  🙂

Around mid-October I start to freeze up.  It’s the month of my dad’s birthday (another Gotcha! day) and I know that it’s the lead up to Nov. 13, the anniversary of his death.  I navigate the three and a half weeks between the two anniversaries holding my breath, praying that nothing will knock me around because it might just knock me over for good.

On Nov. 14, 15, or 16 (depending on how bad my breakdown was on Nov. 13), I finally exhale.

And then Thanksgiving – always one of my favorite days of the year – comes around.  And I begin to breathe again.  I made it.  Life starts again. The world has color again.

I find my way back into living again.  December holds none of the drama and unease that October and November have shown me for the last decade.

The pattern has held this year – but there are two things that are different.  One is that I recognized the pattern so next year perhaps it won’t be so unconscious.  Second is that I didn’t try to force myself to be anywhere but where I was this year.  I’ve let myself be sad, grumpy, happy, angry, tired…whatever it was on any given day, I (mostly) didn’t try to talk myself out of it this year.  That’s new behavior.

And then an email showed up in my box yesterday.  It’s a weekly horoscope (more mystical than astrological, as far as I can tell) from Rob Brezsny (highly recommend!)  It’s as if he was looking straight into my soul when he wrote this one:

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You’re a bit like a professional jet pilot who is operating the pirate ship ride at an amusement park. You have resemblances to a top chef who’s shopping for gourmet ingredients in a seedy convenience store. In other words, Gemini, you may feel slightly off-kilter or dispossessed, even though you have a lot going for you. Here’s the best possible thing you could do while you wait for the fates to show you how to make a correction: Make it your intention to feel centered, poised, and at peace exactly as you are right now.

Amen and hallelujah!

My prayer is that now that I’m breathing again, perhaps the fates will show me the correction and I can get back to being “sparkly Leah” once again.

Today’s miracle: Recognizing old patterns so I don’t have to keep repeating them…and allowing myself to be right where I am.