Ten Things of Thankful 154 (Happy for NOW) #10Thankful

Here I am. Now. RightNow, listening to the irritation of a man trying to fix his dishwasher, humming in between yelling at his camera as he tries to isolate the problem (to tell the people who are paid to do the fixing, so they might be able to offer a quick-and-less-expensive fix); to the small sounds and smells of the girl sat at the table across the room, nibbling mozzarella sticks,which she’s SO excited about being able to eat, having had her 10 reluctant baby teeth pulled just the other day; to an airplane droning outside, overhead…and now not quite so overhead…filled with people experiencing the anticipation or sadness or anxiety or whatever of their tin-can-through-the-sky-Now. 

There are windchimes in the billowing, hot, Oklahoma City wind in the shrubbery outside the windows. Now.

There is cool granite under my forearms and the gentle tap-tap-tapping of the sleek, gentle-cornered keys under my fingertips as I write. Now.

Now – the week in which my life changed more than it ever has before, and also the week in which I acknowledge all the stepping stones and circumstances-begetting-circumstances, persons involved, situations gone by, responses, decisions, actions and reactions, which have brought me to it.

Now – the week in which my life changed really not much at all because I am still the same me, or almost the same me, as I was before my life changed course so dramatically, because every stepping stone, person, circumstance, evolution of situation, response, decision, action and reactions, has had incremental impact – every single Now-me in each of those moments has led to the Next-me, and the next, and I will continue to evolve into the future.

It is that future which has changed. Not the me.

Well. Maybe the me.

I have a new name – a new identity – and I thought about this whilst running laps around the lake this morning, hot sweat sliding down the same forehead I’ve aways had, tangling and staining the hair which has stuck with me through the styles, now beginning to show threads of glittering silver in amongst the brown. I realised I am still entirely the same me – my cells a little older and on their whateverth cycle of regeneration, but my ‘self’ness is not now, nor has it ever been reliant on a name.

Except that it has, in other ways unrelated to grey hairs and lakeside thoughts, because Now I have documents which don’t make me cringe, don’t force me to hearken back to people or situations which shaped me through darkness and pain. However much good I’ve chosen to create from those times – however much I’m thankful they happened for the honing and firing and hammering, I’m far more thankful about being freed from them, even if only in name.

This was my ‘I can do hard things’ face, from one of the Now-me’s of the day I wrote this…

I have a new future – a new destiny – sealed this week when I passed a skills and abilities test with flying colours, and was accepted (should I so want the position (and I do, so, SO want the position)) to undertake massage therapist training at a local college and SPA, which has a *fabulous* ethos and reputation, and a director whose mind is INCREDIBLY wonderfully one I understand and can get alongside. Our email exchanges thus far have been a delight – he’s quoted Plato, I’ve quoted Maslow, and we just GET each other. Time disappeared and we talked for nearly four hours…

I am, as ever, thankful – enormously so – for the friends and family and circumstances, happenstances, serendipitous moments between the wires, and all the love and thoughtfulness, the encouragement and support, the shoring up in the dark times and the suggesting of new directions, which have enabled me to get to this Now.

I have an immediate past which comprises the wonder of being with my Person, my Sunset, in her house, part of her everyday, able to help and support her in small ways even as she provides the place and possibility that enables my future. I’ve been able to hang out with her kid, who is wonderful and spirited and creative and a tonne of fun, and we have HAD a tonne of fun. I’ve even made friends with the dog (former nemesis; still licks my ankles).

I’ve been visited by my Dyannedillion (who escaped Death By Tornado on her way home). I’m anticipating a visit from Renee, who is bringing a boob-squeeze from my dance partner, Squishy. I’ve spoken on the phone with my BlogSister, Abbie, for a long and wonderful time. I’ve chatted with others who matter HUGE to me, in their TimeZone, at last. I’ve missed others, BigLots. I’ve made new friends of Sunset’s friends, and re-met friends of hers who were new-to-me last time I visited. I am new. I am renewed. I am new-to-them, and it’s been LOVELY.

I have an immediate future steeped in the opposing emotions of delighted comfortableness and twisted grief; a necessary losing and gaining of time Without, and With…months in which I must endure and enjoy and encapsulate my life in a way which makes it move-across-the-ocean-able come November – a time which will tear my life, and my already dual-homed heart, still further in two.

I am, as ever, a mixture. A convergent blend and culmination of the people, places, times, circumstances, influences, behaviours and decisions of every Then-me until this moment: I am festering resentment, I am diligent support, I am nervous anxiety, I am devoted actions on behalf of, I am unexpected love…

By the time you read this, I will be several more culminations further along, and who knows what or who I’ll be, but I’m thankful for the opportunities, and all the things and people which help to create each one.

I am the culmination of all my Befores.

I am Now.

 

This post hit two blog-hops with one whatnot, so feel free to jump into either/both, and be a reader, a sharer, a participant, an observer, a lover…just don’t be a hater.

Ten Things of Thankful runs Friday evening to Monday morning (or thereabouts) and Finish the Sentence Friday (hosted by the most delicious Kristi Campbell, and this week’s sentence thinker-upper, Upasna Sethi) runs over the weekend (probably).

 

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