Sunday, January 24th, 2010
Sure…we thought about going somewhere warm. We imagined beaches, sunny afternoons, new landscapes. And then one night it came to me. Instead of going somewhere like we always had, this time I could take the two weeks I had off and make it four, and just stay at home instead. Yes, I would have a vacation at home…
No budgeting, no flights, no recovery getting back, no plans…no plans. I asked myself when the last time had been that I had that much time totally free. There had only been once since summers when I was still really young. My sister and I had gone to visit my parents in the Maltese islands for the holidays, and what started off as a short visit somehow stretched into a month. Since the island we were on was tiny and there were no big sight-seeing plans, we just…did nothing. We slept in every day and went to bed whenever we wanted to without a thought in the world about being prepared for anything the next day…or in days…or weeks. We got up to fresh fruit and good coffee. Days passed filled with the delicious nothingness. Walks were strolls. Hours were liquid. I felt as though I was catching up from all the busyness of my lifetime. And then it ended, and I went back to the world of things to do…and ten years later I saw a way out again.
Don’t get me wrong. I take plenty of time for myself. I sleep in and spend entire days in my pyjamas. I have more of this time for myself than perhaps anyone I know, and I adore my life. I clear spaces in my schedule to be creative…to restore. But they are still that…spaces. They are book-ended by days full of details and cramming. I’ve always been up to it. And up to the travel that would fill me with life and energy, and sometimes devastate me physically as well. But when I discovered my adrenals were suffering, I realized it was time to kick into a higher self-love gear than ever before. This made me happy. I saw a new horizon coming, and I got ready to receive it.
As soon as the month-long vacation-at-home idea came to me, I began to prepare for it. I didn’t just catch up on emails and put a vacation auto-response on my account. No…I did everything. I paid taxes, updated the tabs on our car, and tied up every loose end I could think of. I traveled into future energies to record two Oracle Transmissions in advance and write five Oracle Messages. And then…I turned off the phone, and the computer, and closed my office door. And everything became quiet…quieter than ever before…and I could hear my voice ringing into the huge, empty space before me….into the open, empty, timeless days that strung out as far as I could see. I breathed…deeply.
I think those first two days were the most profound…that and the last. But those first two days couldn’t have been so powerfully freeing without the knowledge that I had another month of those days spread out before me. I had room to expand. There were no timelines…no commitments…no limits. I put away my datebook and posted my couple of dates to remember on the fridge. And then I happily forgot what day it was…and stayed that way. It was like not having to breathe air anymore…like growing gills and diving into the water and not having to come up for air.
I could accept any invitation, anytime. When someone asked what I was doing on a certain day, I could easily say nothing…or I have no idea…or anything I want to! I spent lots of time with friends…laughing, dancing, drinking tea, and coffee, and talking. Every moment was spontaneous…unpremeditated. I remembered what it was like to be free like a child. I knew why we forget. We lose unstructured time….and space.
Space is important too. I started going through my room. The room that contains everything I have ever owned and kept. The room with the closet that holds every piece of paperwork from my life. Journals, poetry, documents, manuals, books, artwork, essays, letters, flyers, photos, mementos….everything. And then I went through it all. Because I had time, and I wasn’t forced to…so it didn’t overwhelm me. I organized it all. And when I was done, on the very last day of my time off…I sat in my clear, warm space and noticed how good it felt there. And because the space was clear it was a natural response to want to be creative in it. I picked up my guitar and started to play. I opened the window to the balmy night and looked at the exquisite stars in the multi-colored sky while the wind blew over my face…and it was bliss. I knew I would never be the same.
It wasn’t rough to start back to “work.” You see, I love what I do beyond any measure and I had missed it so, so much. So it was a pleasure to return to teaching. It’s the rest that had gotten to me before…the holding of a million details in my mind…the overtime on the computer…the rushing. And I had already cut back years ago, but I’ve just decided not to do any of that anymore at all. The amazing gift of that time off is that it showed me what I would do if I had the time to myself and no pressure about what to do with it. And so now I know. And knowing that is very, very powerful.
Now I’ve decided that it is a vacation life. I let go of enough of the old tasks to feel light about whatever comes…to let some details roll off of me and the others to wait patiently. I’ve decided what to let go of and what to keep…and not just from my closet. When I get done with things I need to do, I more easily slip back into my sense of my free time, and my sense of freedom.
That is what I wish for you all today…this year…and for the rest of this lifetime. Freedom. Because there are more ways than a month off to find it. We find it in a million ways every day. We are given opportunities to free up from an old relationship, old habit, old way of thinking or feeling, old obligation, and we just have to know we deserve that unburdening…that freedom. Because we do. And because now more than ever it is time. We are traveling by hot-air balloons and it is time to start cutting away the sandbags. We are meant to be lifted to amazing places. We are meant to know the lightness of our true state of being. We are meant to fall in love again…with life…with ourselves…with each other. And the more time and space we make for ourselves to just be, and to be free, the more that love comes rushing in like a magnetized tide. Our gravity compels it.
It doesn’t matter how tied up you may feel in so many things right now…and how weighed down it may make you feel. Steal an hour. Make it yours. Steal a corner of a room and make it yours. I know it isn’t a month, or a whole space of your own…but it will grow. You are planting a seed. And the more seeds you plant the better. We are fugitives…revolutionaries stealing back our own souls…and soulfulness. Get ready for bare feet and good kisses. Get ready for spring flowers and the restoration of lost feelings. You are about to find the treasure chest of undiscovered beauties…get ready. Make space on your altars, make space in your hearts. It is time, again, to come to life.
Love, Jennifer
