endings need to end, so i can begin!!!

So much time to get to the end...so many roadblocks, so much legal dancing and prestidigitation...

I kept wondering why I have been so so so so tired and I realized it's because I'm always waiting for the next shoe to drop, the next bad game to begin.

Yesterday I was tired tired tired from work, I thought I would just sleep my week away. When I woke up, I was going to try to shrug the shit off my shoulders, put the dog out, sit on my deck, water my garden, crank my music, watch Countdown with mom, unfurl my scrunched brow and smile at the world that rolled out before me, because tho the legality of END is still playing like a broken record, the mary cassidy in me would BEGIN AT WAKE-UP...No more tethers to him, no more ties to broken...

When I woke up, I SAW THAT I HAVE CHOICES...I SAW HOW SILLY I WAS TO NOT HAVE REALLY UNDERSTOOD THAT. AT THE END OF NAP TIME, MARY CASSIDY BEGAN, SMART, LOUD, HAPPY, SEXY, DARING AND CURIOUS...FREE... BEGAN AGAIN

SWEET

THEN there was Good byes and bbs...target practice with a dear man... distraction from her going, a reprieve from waiting..
Life is sweet and oh so strange some weeks...The changes will be rolling in like waves...daughters, divorce, my own daring to dream...

Ironic, I think, that one daughter is coming home at last, the other leaving on her "I need to do this, to see if I can," journey...off to Colorado...beautiful they say...

Sweet and sad for me. I will think of it as an opportunity for her (and at some future point, me,) to see new parts of this country. I will rejoice in her choice and watch, long-distance, her blooming on her own terms.
I will pray to the stars, since god is probably just that, for her happiness, and not mourn her leaving.
I will remember how I left too, years ago, then returned to where home was set in my heart. All will play out as it is meant to.



Sitting with her over dinner, listening to her reasons for leaving, I thought back to my life before her and her sister or even her father. I was so ready to strike out- far away, independent of my family. I did and it was one hell of a ride...foreign travel, island home and new cultures that dug under my skin and became such an integral part of who I now am.

I did not cry. Instead, I wished her happiness and love. And then, how strange a gift, birds pecking crumbs at my feet, bringing a sweet vision of homing pigeons into my head...of her, and her sister, off to the world, with an instinct for when and how to return...driving home, the moon rose and the stars came out...all meant to be what it is.

I am at peace with it...I thought of big love, how it drives us..

I thought of me, now, and of simpler pleasures...of the things that keep me happy...like, how much I would love laying on my deck and watching the stars, or listening in the dark to the sound of water over my pond's watrfall, the joy and satisfaction of hitting a beer can with a bb gun at a friends house on a summer night...

The thought of freedom, anyone's freedom, is so pure, so sweet...
For me, that means it will be okay...even if it includes losing what I have always known as home. Yep, the trade off is no different than the daughters' daring to start new...Fuck yes, change is good.
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS! That cannot be taken away.
I have seen, finally, that I, like my daughters, can't be scared of new anymore...

What is New?:
That Mary Cassidy would bloom from my heart and from my skin, fully formed, like Athena...does that mean fully armed for self-defense? hope so...
That I would be so damned good at designing gardens for people who's idea of beauty is very different from mine? That they would love it and find peace there...
That I can hula-hoop and smoke at the same time...
That I could be so good at birthing babies?
That I could roll, like a ninja, with the punches life has thrown lately? I guess I knew but didn't trust that I did...now I do...
That I could judge a grown-up spelling bee and bee naughty as necessary
That I could see that BIG changes are just big changes...and, roll baby roll...
That I could love so many kinds of music...opera, r&b, hip-hop, rock, indie, folk, metal, punk, jazz, blues...

I am currently listening to : I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too, By Martha Wainwright. I love it...somehow it makes me feel free, like my life is just one more example of how things start anew...she is amazing...listen.