When we agree with life, beautiful things might unfold

It was still dark when I entered the destination on Waze. Seven hours to Atlanta…it made me laugh since I would be making many stops, and knew for a fact it would take much longer….. As I drove, the realization of getting to go back to visit a city where I spent ten years of my life, felt like a wonderful gift. I have moved around all my life and never been in a place long enough to forge strong relationships. This is the one thing I have always wished for, that feeling of home, of a community, a feeling of stability. Atlanta had been that for me for the first time, and yet one day I had to let that go. I still remember where I was standing when my husband had come to give me the news. Three months before that day, I had found out I had breast cancer, after the surgery I found out that I would endeed undergo chemotherapy, and then finding out I had to leave my community and loved friends, felt like more than I could handle. Yet I had survived, not one move, but two back to back, and a pandemic. Nothing had been nearly the same, but six years had passed, and I was looking forward to seeing as many people as I possibly could in 3 and a half days.

It felt like no time had gone by, but so many things had happened in all of our lives. I always find it interesting to see what we decide to highlight when we reconnect with friends. We cant possibly retell everything that has transpired since we last saw each other, what do we choose to share? I was also taken aback by the feeling that it felt more like six weeks than six years. The love, that which is essential and real, that was still intact and person after person that I met with, reminded me that not everything had been lost.

What had I been up to? From my friends’ comments, I realized that the Atlanta Paula had been focused on the outside, focused on relationships. The last six years which contained two moves and a pandemic, had forced me to go inside of myself like nothing else had been able to. I do not believe I would have undetaken this inner journey willingly. If this suspicion was true, then that gut wrenching news of our move, had been a gift in disguise.

What had I done the past six years? Not much, I had not met that many people, I no longer organized big parties or had much social life. What had I done the past six years? I had done a Family Constellation online, and had decided to invest three years of my life to studying and becoming a facilitator. I had studied Reiki and Healing Touch, I had began to see a therapist twice a week AND found a spiritual director. What had I done the past six years? Not much outwardly, but inwardly, I had been on the most exiting adventure of my life, and today I felt like a different person.

I am thankful for real friendships, those that defy time and space. I am thankful for so many beautiful people that I met in my ten years in Atlanta. But today I am also thankful for loss, for a pandemic which allowed me to connect with people in South America, for my dreams not coming true. Everything that was taken away from me has made space for something as beautiful, more than I could have ever planned for myself. As I think of the impermanence of life, I remind myself that even pain and suffering, or especially pain and suffering might be gifts in our lives if we are open to where they guide us.