Thank you, Rumi

I have been experiencing this sensation lately where I feel continuously pulled between conflicting emotions. For someone who is pretty decisive, that can be incredibly frustrating. I imagine it's just as frustrating if you are the indecisive type too. There's been a lot happening in my world, and what happens in my world invariably impacts my heart. Just as I was feeling particularly fragile earlier today, a friend shared this beautiful quote that resonated with me so deeply:

‎God turns you from one feeling to another
And teaches you by means of opposites
So that you will have two wings to fly,
Not one. - Rumi

Thank you, Rumi, for casting a light of clarity on a seeming conundrum. I was really starting to struggle a bit with all the opposites that I'd been feeling, but struggle is always only a self-created construct. All I needed to do was create another attitude toward this sensation in order to experience it differently. This doesn't change the conflicting feelings nor does it materially change any outward circumstance. But it does have the ability to change the impact on my heart, and that means everything.

For a little more than a month now, between the end of a very meaningful romance and the beginning of a very challenging chapter with my mom, I have felt simultaneously more alone than ever, all while being touched to my core by the love and support showered on me from so many sources. I have stood in a room full of friends and literally felt as isolated as if I were standing alone on a cliff over the deepest ocean. I have been going about my day feeling happy, strong and focused, only to be randomly seized by this lonely, sad vice that snatches me out of nowhere. How can this be, I've asked? When the pain of loneliness strikes, immediately my higher consciousness kicks in with the reminder that I am so blessed to have an incredible support system, the most amazing "framily" who show up for me in such beautiful and at times unexpected ways. So how could I be so ungrateful as to wallow in loneliness, if even for fleeting moments? Then I delve deeper, and I ask why should I invalidate any of my feelings? Rather than dismissing them or judging myself for them, this is a time to explore, to get curious, to really understand what is prompting all of these seemingly disparate emotions.

In a gift from the Divine, Rumi comes along and sums it all up for me. Just as we need dark to appreciate light, pain to appreciate pleasure, lack to appreciate abundance, we need to feel conflicting emotions to fully appreciate the whole of our human experience. In so doing we can spread two equally strong, steady, graceful wings to fly with. Any imbalance between those two wings, and we fall. It is just that simple.

Secure your oxygen mask before assisting others around you

Earlier today a friend came to me for a bit of advice. She was asking how to stay still in the midst of other people's chaos since she's in a very peaceful place while others close to her seem to be experiencing their fair share of difficulty. Welcome to the story of my life lately. It couldn't be mere coincidence that she posed this question just as I find myself living the same thing. Someone I love dearly, wholly and differently from any other person on this planet is going through an awful time. While that is happening, my life is pretty darn amazing, and it can be challenging to reconcile the mix of emotions I feel as well as maintain my own balance. Needing to process all of my stuff as well as respond to my friend's question, I figured writing was my best bet. So here are some tips, in no particular order:

Tip #1: Use the challenge as a lesson.

When someone very close to you is going through a difficult time, it is bound to effect you. Assuming you have a modicum of compassion and empathy in your warm, beating heart how could you not be stirred by the suffering of one you care about? Perhaps some of us take on more than we need to, while others don't take enough. Who knows? Who cares? The point is, when a tough situation presents itself in this way, there's a reason for it and there's a reason you're party to it so you're best served to figure out what that is. Rather than wallow in said stuff, thereby encouraging the sufferer to do the same, learn from it. Without getting too stuck in your respective heads about the situation, look at it as objectively and creatively as possible to find the lesson(s) and perhaps even the solution(s) that the matter at hand has been delivered up by the Universe to bring you to. After all, the trials and tribulations of life are never more than we can truly bear and they are here to inspire growth, healing and ultimately positivity. So find that and share it. Share it with the person struggling. Share it with others who could maybe learn from the example. Share it because sharing lightens your load and deepens your bonds. It lets you know you're not alone, and there is value to whatever is happening. (Side note- all the above applies to your own struggles too)

Tip #2: What's mine is mine, what's yours is yours

In close relationships we generally tend to encourage a dissolution of many boundaries, material and otherwise. Generosity is pervasive, shared responsibility is necessary and there is a heightened intimacy that comes from having such freedom with another person. But this isn't true in all areas. We've all got our issues and our baggage. We've all got our problems and our hang-ups. When someone near and dear to us is caught up in all that, it is important to have a clear understanding of where their stuff stops and your stuff starts. Don't take another's issues on as your own. Recognize when you are falling into the trap of assuming their drama, or worse, blaming their issue/situation as the cause of your own feelings about it. If we strive to be accountable, we have to know what is ours as much as when to release something that isn't. You can be supportive and empathetic, yes, but there must be boundaries. Whether it is expressing that you've reached the limits of what you can handle or offer in an attempt to help, or acknowledging that you're using the person as a scapegoat for your own issues, you've got to own it. You've got to be honest, with yourself and others.

Tip #3: Be the change

In the wise and timeless words of the great Mahatma Gandhi, " . . .be the change. . ." that the person struggling wishes for them self. Lead by positive example. If you are the one living healthy, making wise choices, doing good in the world, being responsible or whatever the positive example is, keep at it! Don't get dragged down into the depths of their difficulty. Instead, be the light the shines above, illuminating the path toward whatever positive change. And DO NOT feel guilty about it. Guilt comes up for a lot of us when someone close to us is struggling through something, feeling down perhaps, and we're out there living large and happy. I know for me can happen and it stems from a desire to share the wealth if you will. When I'm feeling good and my life is going great, I want to share that with everyone important to me. I want to bring them all into the fold, and admittedly, I've experienced feeling a little guilty when I'm riding a high and someone I love is stuck in a low. But guilt doesn't get us anywhere. Fostering positive energy and example does. So stick with that and everyone involved has a much greater chance of reaping the benefits than if you succumb to guilt and sink to the low.

Tip #4: Take care of you

In the face of tough times, whether yours or someone you love, you have to keep your strength up. So that means nurturing yourself, and maybe even pampering yourself a little extra. This goes for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual strength. It is so essential to keep your foundation solid or you can't be of use to anyone. For me, this means meditating and chanting regularly, getting in as much time on the yoga mat and exercising as possible, having fun and surrounding myself with people, places and activities that make me smile, laugh and feel inspired. It also means the occasional chocolate and peanut butter frosting cupcake for dinner (like tonight) or rocking out like mad to some angry music or whatever scratches the particular itch that you need to get it at in order to show up as fully present and strongly reinforced as possible. You should never apologize for taking good care of yourself, for taking time for yourself, especially when something challenging is looming. That's when you need it the most.

Tip #5: Love holding love

Focusing on the spiritual side of things for a moment, while you are the one holding a space of calm amidst the storm, hold a space of love. Embody love, be love, create love, share love, inspire love. Having pure, positive intention is powerful stuff. Let your intention be to promote love, healing, peace, joy, transcendence and liberation. Create a space for all of this in your heart and hold it there for the one you care about. Hold it there until they are ready to occupy it fully themselves. Do everything in your power to sustain hope for and belief in brighter days. Just focusing your energy and intention on that has the power to make it manifest. This is so important, so fundamental.

So to everyone out there working to support someone they love, for everyone leaning on someone for support, take heart in knowing there is a reason for it all and there is the opportunity for much good to come from whatever struggles you face. And know for certain that you must have your own proverbial oxygen mask properly secured before you can possibly hope to help someone with theirs. That's life. Life it fully. Live it well.

A new age has dawned

11.11.11. Quite the day if you care much for spirituality, consciousness, metaphysics, numerology and the like, which I absolutely do. Today actually has the feel of New Years Day in that it is brimming with vibrant, fresh, positive energy that is the trademark of new beginnings. Many consider today to be the official start of the Aquarian Age, a time when higher consciousness will be more readily available to those of us on this earthly plane, a time for connectedness, peacefulness and contentedness to be the norm. As an aquarius myself I find this all to be delicious and thrilling.

Over the last few days I've felt myself more aligned with my own higher consciousness, my soul if you will, than usual. Messages have been coming through with such clarity and eloquence that I can't help but take notice, and overwhelmingly, they speak of the notion that everything we desire, admire and aspire to is in us already. We are innately whole, balanced and perfect, yet we come to believe we are missing something, out of whack or somehow deficient thanks to living life. Some of us create more suffering for ourselves than others, while some seem to have a far easier time embracing their own divinity and operating from that space. If what my heart and a lot of the 11.11.11 propaganda say are true, we're at the doorway of a time when standing in our own light, our own perfection, will be something that everyone can freely and readily do, not just the uber-spiritual set or the elite class that we, as a society, have placed up on pedestals. It is time for an equal distribution of spiritual wealth as we collectively come to appreciate the abundance that already resides within us. There is no effort required to attain it. The effort is simply in recognizing and connecting to it.

But how? And where? And will it be hard or weird? I can only speak from my own experience in saying that yes, it can seem a little weird at first when you start delving into these "new age" sort of practices and associating with people who embrace and embody this sort of belief system. Yet once the initial shock wears off and you become just a tad familiar, I am confident you will find that gathering with a spiritual community is like a wonderful homecoming each and every time. To be in an energy that is inclusive as opposed to exclusive, that focuses on intangible abundance as opposed to material abundance, that promotes truly holistic well being as opposed to focusing on say, just the physical or just the mental, it is so welcoming and nourishing. In my experience people tend to be very friendly and all too happy to bring you into the fold. If you don't understand something, just ask. If you have concerns, someone will surely be happy to discuss them with you so you can make informed opinions of what is going on around you. Open yourself to something a little unknown, forge a connection to something bigger or higher than yourself and you will certainly reap the rewards.

I started my celebration of this auspicious date last night actually, joining in a full moon meditation at the beach that literally set my heart soaring. This morning some of my dearest friends and I woke to attend a Kundalini Sadhana (Kundalini being a school of yoga, Sadhana, a spiritual gathering) that began at 4:30am. Hours later as the sunlight was streaming through the windows and the effects of the postures, breath work and chanting had infiltrated us all, the room was literally buzzing with vibrant energy radiating from all those in attendance. Then it was to the ocean for me so that at 11:11am on 11.11.11 I could connect to nature in what is, for me, the most natural and harmonious way: in the water. And the celebrations continue as more and more gatherings are to come. So find some for yourself! Try out a new yoga studio, find a drum circle, visit a house of worship, take a trip to a spiritual destination, commune with nature. Whatever inspires you, whatever will allow you to step into the Aquarian age and connect to higher consciousness can only be a good thing. It can only perpetuate more of the positive energy that radiates at the center of each of our beings, illuminating it to the point where there is simply no containing it and it can be seen by all around you.

Welcome to the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, friends!! Namaste!!

Truth and Lies

I’ve been pondering a question lately: Is it ever really acceptable to tell a lie to someone you love? People lie for many reasons. They lie about things they deem small and innocent. They lie to make themselves feel better, to cover up a perceived shortcoming or an insecurity. They lie under the auspices of protecting or impressing the person being told the lie. They lie because they can’t even distinguish between what is true and what is false at times. They lie because they think they can get away with it. I’m not as pure and infallible as to claim to never have told a lie or stretched the truth; however, by and large I am honest to a fault. It is so intertwined with what constitutes integrity for me, a trait I take very seriously, that it is literally painful for me to lie. Quite often it is just impossible, most of all when it comes to something of import to someone important to me. Not everyone feels the same way.

It is hard to accept that someone you love has betrayed your trust with lies. Perhaps harder still is to have known somewhere deep inside of you that something didn’t quite add up or make sense. Something was off and your gut was telling you so, yet you pushed past it by focusing on how much you love this person, how much good you see in them. After all, telling lies doesn't mean someone is inherently bad. Good people sometimes do bad things. And when you love someone that love is a reflection of you, so who would want to acknowledge that someone they’ve “endorsed” with their love is telling lies? It isn’t pleasant, and I speak from very recent experience.

On to that experience . . . Apparently I have a thing for falling for guys with impressive speed. Who I’m trying to impress isn’t quite clear. Obviously the guy likes me enough to want to be with me. And I certainly like me enough. So why go at warp speed? I don’t have a good answer, other than to say, that’s just been my style. When I meet someone I don’t connect with on a deeper level, I immediately walk away. So not surprisingly, when I meet someone I do connect with on a deeper level, I dive in head first and give it my all. This has happened more than once. It ended up with me married, at age 22, after five months of dating and co-habitating. And now I’ve been in not one but two pretty serious post-marriage relationships with guys who I shared a soul level connection with, only to find after several months of push and pull amidst the yumminess of new love that if it is that much work early on, it probably isn’t going to work in the long haul. It doesn't negate the power and realness of the soul-connect, but not all such bonds are meant to last. I’m kind of hard headed and apparently I didn’t want to readily accept this lesson the first time, so the second time the Universe delivered up someone who would turn out to break a cardinal rule by lying to me, among other things, making it impossible for me to stay involved. What fun!

In all sincerity, I’m not bitter about the way it all went down. I am, on the contrary, immensely grateful. Yes, at first it pissed me off greatly to know I invested so much of myself into a relationship with someone who I believed was worthy of everything I have to give only to have it all go up in smoke. And what’s even crazier is that the lies were told to cover up truths that I would have had no problem accepting! They weren’t deal breakers; they weren’t things I would have cared about one way or the other. But I do care tremendously about truthfulness, and once lied to I now know that I have a very hard time trusting again. So I’m glad to have had all this come to light sooner rather than later. C. and I started out on the fast track to creating a life together, and it would have been far more complicated to walk away had that happened as opposed to it ending while we still had largely separate lives. More importantly, all of this has created the perfect platform for me to really examine my role in this dynamic.

Clearly not everyone has it in them to go all in on a new relationship the way I do. A few of my dearest friends won’t even utter the word “boyfriend” until six or so months in, and even then, it is only at a whisper. Me, I shout it from the rooftops after mere weeks if it feels right. If I find myself with someone who I adore, who I feel proud to call my man, heck yeah I want to let that be known. The trouble is, I am apparently way too quick to pass judgment, in this case, deeming someone worthy of my total adoration and commitment before I really know them, and before we have a chance to truly see if we work or not. Chemistry and passion are powerful, intoxicating forces. So when they’re there, it is easy to confuse them for deep, meaningful and lasting compatibility, at least for me anyway. I see it all through the rose-colored glasses of new love, rather than the centered, grounded space within me that I work so hard to nurture and operate from. I guess I’m in love with falling in love, and that doesn't always end well. Acknowledging you have a problem is the first step to fixing it, right?!? And since I’m willing to come here and write about all that is so wonderful about me and my life, I also have to be fair and own the parts that are a little less wonderful. I’ve been pretty vocal about being so in love, so it is the appropriate counter balance to verbalize (or write) that I pressed the gas pedal a little too hard, a little too fast on this one. All of you can help keep me honest ;-)

So as with every experience and encounter, I open myself up to the lesson, or lessons as it were. Lesson #1: I have a very low, if any, tolerance for liars, particularly liars who want to date me. Lesson #2: Enthusiastic and excitable as I am, as much love as I so desire to share with that special someone, pacing myself is a must. It’s just better for everyone involved. I bear C. no ill will. I honestly wish nothing but the best for all my exes, and regard them with gratitude. They fulfilled their purpose in my life and I in theirs. That’s what we’re here for, and I’m very grateful to be open and aware enough to see and appreciate the lessons, even the ones that require me to take off the rose-colored glasses in order to see straight! Thanks fellas! Thanks life! Here's to doing it better the next time around!

Highs and Lows, Light and Dark (originally published 9/27/11)

Whether you subscribe to the belief or not, can any of us really deny that duality exists? Vedanta, a fundamental part of my yoga training, asserts that non-duality is the nature of our existence, that Self, Brahma, the Whole are really one in the same with our little individual selves. The rest is just an illusion, or Maya. Yet there are so many pairs of seeming opposites that occur in nature, within our very beings and within our human experience. We speak of our higher self, which is to say the more enlightened, wise, soul-driven aspect of our being, as opposed to our lower self, the less learned, less mature, ego-driven facet. There is light and dark, both in the literal sense thanks to the earth's orbit, and in the figurative sense referring to the happy times in life as opposed to the sad ones. There are highs and lows, moments or perhaps days, weeks, years where things are really just going smoothly, blessings seem abundant and nothing can bring you down, until of course something does and suddenly your bogged down in the low, struggling to even remember the high times.

Like anyone who happened to stumble across this page, I've lived through highs and lows, light and dark and times of operating from both my higher self as well as my lower self. It's called life. We're all doing it. And sometimes what the higher self feels or knows comes into direct conflict with what the lower self wants. Sometimes the gifts bestowed in times of light overshadow the gifts that come in times of dark, simply because they are wrapped in prettier paper. What I believe it all boils down to is embracing both sides equally, facing them honestly and using the sum of the sometimes disparate parts to enjoy and experience life fully.

Ok, so this started off on a highly esoteric, slightly abstract note. Bringing it back to the "real world" lately I've found myself battling against my own duality, specifically how it plays into my love life. My soul loved C's soul from the moment we met. As we are both believers in such things, we readily embraced the notion that this is because our souls have journeyed together across many lifetimes. We are familiar to each other at that level. I've had more than one intuitive practitioner who I trust support this belief, each adding a new insight into our past life history and how that might contribute to this present incarnation. But beyond what anyone says, it's just something I feel at my core level, and I trust my instinct, so I've gone with it. The thing is what our souls know to be true does not necessarily correlate directly to what our lower, more earthly selves know. The latter is steeped in the experiences, beliefs, dramas, standards, expectations, etc. of this particular lifetime. Whatever baggage we've amassed along the way, we're bringing it with us into every connection we make. So you can end up loving someone so deeply, feeling drawn to them in a way that is beyond your control, and yet you find yourself wanting to ring their neck at times out of sheer frustration because they just don't get it! Or maybe you just don't get it! Or maybe one or both just can't express it! We could go on and on.

In love, if you cannot deem the sum of the parts totally lovable, and reach a state of peaceful agreement with your beloved that there are ways in which you differ and disagree, you're doomed. It is that simple. We all come with self and Self, light and dark, high and low. We all come with baggage. We are multi-dimensional and when we partner up, we usually do it with someone who has many dimensions that fit with our own, but it is impossible to find someone who fits them all. Why? Because the only way to do that is to be a complete narcissist and be in love with yourself!! Even if you have tons in common with your lover, same upbringing, same world views, same interests, you are not the same person and so you will always have something that is uniquely, differently and solely you to contribute to every equation. Grasping this in theory is one thing. Making it work in practice is another. So often we find ourselves in power struggles, pushing and pulling to bring lover and beloved into total alignment rather than being okay with some asymmetry in our relationship. It's called life. We're all doing it. But there can come a point where we stop, not living, but struggling. There can come a point where we accept what is, embrace the sum of the parts and find balance even in occasional imbalance. This is what I am striving for, and I hope that by sharing what I'm experiencing you will reflect on ways to do the same.

Wishing you peace, love and fulfillment, friends.

A lesson in being present (Originally published 9/21/11)

How foolish we are, as a species, generally speaking? We go about our lives believing we have unlimited time on this earth, believing we're somehow entitled to the privilege of simply breathing and existing, believing our pain, joy, circumstances, you name it, to be greater than that of others. How is this so, when in truth, all we really have is the present moment and the very breath we are drawing in it? Moreover, that breath is the same as the one everyone else is drawing too. Fools we are!

I do not set myself apart. I am among the billions who feel a sense of entitlement to this life, with all its luxuries and abundance. I find myself all too often caught in the trap of believing things will last, indefinitely if not forever, even though I completely subscribe to the fact that this is a falsehood. Though objectively speaking I know myself to be inherently no better nor worse than any other of my fellow humans, in moments my own experience is the biggest, most all-encompassing, all-pervading matter in existence. And then something happens. . . a turn of events, a passage in a book, a word from a friend, and my perspective shifts back into focus. I am reminded that it has been my ego clouding my judgment, obscuring my focus, temporarily blinding me from what is real.

What's real is yesterday I served as foreperson on a jury that found a young man guilty of obtaining his citizenship in the United States through fraud. The fraud was checking "no" to a box that he should have checked "yes" to. Had he completed the form a week earlier in his life, "no" would have been the correct answer, and he would have retained the right to remain in the country where he has been since six years of age, the country where is life and family reside. Later I learned that someone I love dearly lost someone that they love dearly, a woman who has known me since birth and who passed suddenly, without specific illness, without any drama. Yes, she was elderly and had lived a full life, but the point is simply how from one moment to the next everything changed without warning. Then I went on to find out this morning that my treasured friend, a role model, a fairy grandmother of sorts, is facing down a battle with cancer for the second time in a year.

None of these three people was likely going about their days, breathing each breath, with the thought in the front of their minds that it could be their last or that their life could dramatically change in the blink of an eye. I am not suggesting this foreboding mentality as a means of living a happy and a healthy life. What I am suggesting is that we, and that includes me, would all be best served to incorporate more presence of mind and gratitude into our everyday. As the saying goes, "be here now". (Thank you Ram Dass!) While I sat with C. today and told him about the events that had transpired, our conversation meandered to a point where he shared that he is bound and determined to give his full attention to whoever or whatever he was focused on in any moment. At that particular moment it was me, so when I inquired after his plans for the day and another friend, he responded by saying he wasn't thinking of any of that. He was thinking of me. He was there with me in that moment and nothing else mattered.

That's music to any lover's ears, of course, to know that your beloved is giving you their full and undivided attention. Yet, today, for me there was more to his words than that. It was the recognition that while there are moments for multi-tasking and there are certain roles and responsibilities we have that never fall away, that doesn't preclude us from making the conscious choice to say I am going to focus on the present 100%. The present really is everything. It is all that we have. At some point we will all see our last sunrise, dance our last dance, swim in the ocean for the last time, gaze into our lover's eyes and kiss their lips for a final time, give our children one last embrace. It is not for us to know when the last of anything will be. It is for us to make each and every one of them count for precisely that reason. Many of us believe this in theory. We've read it in some new age/spiritual/self help book or heard it spoken in some similar seminar. But theory and practice are so often different. In this case, I don't believe they should be. So in my life I vow to bridge that divide, to eliminate the difference, and to be as present to every precious, blessed moment as possible. If that is my life's work then it will be a worthwhile one in my esteem.

My humble appreciation and abiding gratitude for all the ways in which the Universe and the messengers it has sent have shared this lesson with me.

Memories of my father (Originally published 9/10/11)

It's been more than two years since my father died, at age 59. I was the one holding his hand as he took his final breath. I didn't cry instantaneously. I stood there, very still, with one hand on his chest, now still as still could be, the other hand on my own. I remember feeling a sensation of peace, then it was just a bit eerie, then I turned around and marched out of the room to find a hospice nurse. My concern shifted toward my mother, asleep on a nearby sofa. I woke her and broke the news and then the tears came. We held each other, we stood with him, we prayed. I cried a lot over the loss of my father that morning, but not very often since.

I began to believe I wasn't sentimental. I began to believe not shedding tears for the man who helped bring me into this life meant I didn't have overt tenderness in my heart for him. We'd had a pretty tumultuous relationship for many of our years together, and though we really came a long way in the end, and he passed with our bond as solid as ever, I came to believe that my father's absence from my adult life was something that I could deal with just fine, thank you. I may have forgiven but I hadn't truly forgotten the rifts and the pain that had existed between us for so long. So imagine my surprise when I recently began to see that what I had forgotten was just how much I really, really loved this imperfectly perfect man, and just how sentimental I can be when it comes to him.

My father showed up in a dream. It wasn't my dream, rather, the dream belonged to C., my relatively new love and someone who only knows my father through my words and the odd photo. I didn't ask what the dream was about. It didn't seem necessary. As a firm believer in most things spiritual and intuitive, I just took this information in and trusted that the deeper meaning or purpose would reveal itself in due time. Shortly thereafter I sat down to channel with a dear friend of mine who has a gift for being a conduit for soul messages. My focus was all about C. We've been together for several months now, but I hadn't channeled him and I was chomping at the bit to hear from his soul, and to ask about our soul connection. (If this seems really far out there and hard to grasp for some of you, I can understand. I invite you to channel for yourselves and see if that doesn't change your perspective.) As I sat there alternately nodding in agreement and beaming from sheer delight to receive messages about the incredible power and depth of the bond I share with the man now occupying center stage in my life, it occurred to me to inquire just what the man who had been center stage for a large portion of my life was doing showing up in C's dream.

In came my father's soul, elated to speak to me this way. I hadn't channeled him in many, many months. And spiritual though I may be in my own ways, I scarcely recall my dreams and have no identifiable ability for channeling soul messages myself. Combine that with the fact that, as I mentioned, I'd declared myself largely without sentiment on the subject of my deceased father, and one could understand, if you believe in such things, that he'd be extremely happy to have this chance to connect with me. He came to C. both as a means of reaching me, but also to check C. out for himself and to have the experience of "visiting" someone who would be consciously receptive. Crazy stuff, huh?!?! But it didn't phase me. It made sense. And it warmed my heart to hear my father's soul's obvious enthusiasm over the experience. It was a transformational one for him, and he could readily understand why I am so drawn to C. He was happy for me, happy for us.

In the weeks since then memories of my father have begun to surface at the most unexpected moments in the most unexpected ways. On a leisurely drive with C. I recalled motorcycle rides by the beach, scuba diving outings and other adventures my father and I shared back in the day. Some silent tears fell as I felt my heart soften toward my dad. While clearing out my closet and drawers for a clothing swap with friends today, I accidently sent crashing to the ground one of the oldest possessions I have, a gift from my father. It was a hand painted eggshell, insides removed as if by magic, fragile and beautiful, sitting in its glass enclosure. I must have been five or six-years old when he gave it to me, and somehow, and for reasons I never fully understood, I kept it for all these years. When it shattered, I felt shattered. I froze as if suspended in air for a moment, then fell to my knees as hysterical sobs gripped me. What was this sentiment? Where was this emotion coming from? I missed my dad. For all that he wasn't, for all that I didn't like or understand about him, he was mine, he always tried to be there for me and he loved me with everything he had.

I could say that he is gone now, but that is only a partial truth. Physically, yes. On a soul level and in my heart, no. He is with me. And as C. reminded me when we spoke, post-egg shattering, smack in the middle of my flood of tears, I haven't lost anything. The egg is just a thing. The egg is not my father. The egg is not my memories. So while it is understandably sad that this beautiful object my father gave me now sits in pieces, my feelings toward him and my ability to sense him seem to have been strengthened as a result. He just gave me a wonderful lesson in detachment, a wonderful lesson in love.

Wherever you are, dad, I know you are with me. Thank you. All my love for all eternity.