Last night, when I popped in on Zack, on his computer in his room, he asked what I’ve been up to this past week. He said he’s noticed that I’ve been very busy and much happier lately. Off I went to I retrieve my iPad, where I pulled up my blog and showed him.
Midway through reading Wednesday’s post, he looked up at me and said, “Wow, Mom,” put down the iPad, stood up and wrapping me in his arms, gave me one of his famous hugs. Just half an inch shy of six feet, Zack towers over me by half a foot. That, along with being twenty-one years old, makes it’s hard to remember he’s my ‘baby’. But his hugs? They are so freely given from his heart that it’s easy to forget he has his own battle scars—scars that would’ve had many people build a wall around themselves and take up residence for the duration.
“I thought you were going to blog about crochet?”
“No,” I laughed. (I was surprised he remembered.) I told him I posted photos of my work instead. I explained “negative visioning’ and told him how Seneca, the Roman general and philosopher inspired me to immerse myself in my greatest fear: being exposed and totally vulnerable. Always intrigued by strategies and battles, I had his attention. I told him that I thought not wearing make up for the month would put me way outside of my comfort zone and I shared how I am committed to write and publish daily.
“But Mom,” he said, sounding confused. “You don’t wear make up all of the time.”
“Yeah, Zack, I pretty much never leave the house without it.”
“You do when you walk Nash,” he pointed out.
“True. But I nearly always wear a hat or sunglasses.”
Zack paused, thinking about how I dressed when I took Nash out. “Well, you look fine even when you aren’t wearing make up,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as if this was all no big deal. And it wasn’t. Not any more.
I hadn’t planned on what showed up this week any more than I planned on writing about it. But previous experience has taught me that there is so much more than ‘me’ at work here. I trust a wisdom greater than my own to know what is in my best interest, especially when I don’t. It’s how our family survived dismantling at a very deep level, coming out much clearer and stronger in our love and convictions. I know better than to question what opens up to me.
I’ve learned to get out of my own way.
What is one way that you get in your own way?
Copyright by Donna Cerame, 2014
Donna Cerame 