Thresholds

May 2 is a noteworthy day in my life. It is a day that changed my life forever six years ago: one in which new doors opened and old doors closed. It is nothing short of a threshold.

When I reflect on everything that has happened between May 2 then and now, I stammer for words. There were moments early on -- facing truths that pulverized me like waves too strong to stand in, but yet I kept trying. The undertow getting the best of me, dragging me away from the places at which I started. Sometimes pulling me under when I least expected it. The rush of seawater into my lungs that would leave me coughing for years. The sand disappearing under my feet as the tide washed away, leaving me searching for truth, slipping for balance.

There have been moments of guarded silence and moments of raucous hope. These have been years in which love and fear almost tore me apart -- but didn't. There’s been tiny single-mom apartments and a large family home stuffed full of seven loving souls. There’s a big yard, and first day of school pictures, and potty-training, and sweet 16 parties, and karate classes, and soccer games, and pre-school field trips, and new cars. Countless nights on the deck or by the firepit, drinking wine while my husband smoked a cigar. There’s been long talks with my big kids, the purchase of prom dresses, growing a garden, shoveling snow, building fires in the hearth, family dinners, loads of laundry, emotional battles waged, positions defended, victories, losses, stalemates, white flags, and change. Jobs and projects and income and interviews and background checks and new beginnings.

My family divided as our future multiplied.

Until finally, I landed on my yoga mat yesterday and during our final shivasnaa, the instructor read this passage, and I have to believe he was talking directly to me, although he never could have known, but surely he always has. "How long are you going to hold on to past hurts? For how long will you stand cloaked in your self-righteous suffering when you have the strength to let go? All you have to do is open your hands and lay down your most cherished fears.”

And with that. I did.