Returning Home (to yourself)
For my sun ☀️ moon 🌝 The love you desire is all with in you. Home is indeed not outside of you, instead it’s anchored within you, always.
We took a quick drive up the coast so I could pick up the generous lend of a car to borrow from our California ohana while we are here. After 2 1/2 years we finally made it back.
Every mile on that drive, I had missed so dearly. I smiled knowing I’ll take my time next drive on it this trip. I long and miss the scenery and sights as much as the people here. Being on roads you know so well, with views imprinted in your cells, yanks you back familiar.
I had the return drive back to mama & sisters house with my just my big girl, Daysha, solo. We were all still a bit on HST, and she was spent. She always needs a little quiet, like her mama, to reboot.
I took her through quick cruises by a couple of my childhood homes, on the the walks to bus stops, down Main Street, from one side of my home town, to the other, with my old Grammar school, still in the middle. These brief drive by’s conjuring up this long talk about how I ended up leaving our small town at 18, just two weeks after graduation. The next 12 years would be in L.A . At 30, I would return back, where she knew I met her daddy and had her.
“So, mom… why did you leave”?
I told her it’s a truly a story first about lack of self love under the surface. That’s it’s come back around many times over, and mama finds her home again and again. But first, honestly it was a lot of pain I wanted to run from.
She’s heard the rest. She know’s mama’s dreams come true and jobs and life as an artist, dancer, actor, fitness career’s, business successes. She hears them often, through stories frequently told as all of those experiences and work still play out in our lives now. It’s always a big laugh when I still receive a residual check from a movie I did at 19.
I decided to tell her what was so loud in my head but never spoken out loud. I am starting tell my girls more truth. In the bits they can handle. At their ages and stages. This felt right. As our girls fear or pain comes up, when they are not with me, I am starting to teach them of their own homes too. To remind her of them both, of their home base right with in them each.
Though my high school years were full of life I loved. Always dancing in classes and companies, performing and traveling for conventions and competitions. At school, sports teams, clubs, leadership, all around big social life. Boys and boyfriends. Best girl friends I still keep up with today. It also was lack and lows that pulled my decision to leave home.
I had Bombed my SAT’s. I hid that I didn’t feel smart enough for college from everyone. I didn’t even try to apply anywhere. I had my heart broken by my first love. Under that was family heart breaks stuffed down. A lifetime of just saying OK, because truly I just made it so, and kept so dang busy I had no real time to feel much of anything for too long. A planner since age 9.
By my mid twenties I would start to discover many things were not ok in those moments, and that, THAT, was so ok to feel that way and say that. I begun the healthier life long journey of being more truthful with my life, my experiences, in simple conversation to start.
“The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!” Gloria Steinman
Every time I return home, geographically, I am reminded how I truly needed to find home with in myself first. Not always because I wanted to. But because it was the only way to truly process that pain.
After our divorce I had thought we would just move back to the central coast, but that was not how it turned out. We stayed on Kauai, to navigate the transition into Co Parenting, becoming single and into newly single income houses. The girls transitioning into two home living. Deepening our community of Ohana, chosen family on Kauai. And of returning inward again and again, when I could not get the me and the girls to California, around family. We usually made it at least once year, but in those valley’s I ached to live there again.
I had to learn to pause and breath. Hand over heart. Pray, and find home right in that moment.
It’s still not easy. My body bucks like a horse. My anxiety fires up to run away. My mind wants to tell me all the things I should be doing instead. But my soul KNOWS. When I stay, right there, It’s still my favorite way to Be and Stay with me. All with in my own body and soul. Being home sweet home with in myself. I settle into not needing anyone’s attention, advice or permission first. I hear God’s whispers of grace and sheer presence. I remember I am never alone. I become closer with me. I return to the moment or day or bump in the road with better clarity from with in me and guidance.
As they too now start to venture off in their interests away from home’s. To teach my girls, best I can, to follow what pulls. To find what they are here to do. Why they are here to do it. Who they are are here to help and serve. What is going to come through them, because there is just light that iIS them. May they too pause to breathe and return home, when ever they need to feel what is simply truthful and needed for them. To help stay connected to what is clear and best for you alone first. To stay listening to your soul and spirit. To keep steady with in your own body’s systems and health. May that be their anchor. Their home no matter where they are in the world, able to return home at any moment.