All Rivers Flow To The Sea

First a bit of business: 

I want to apologize for the annoying autostart on that video I embedded in last week's post. I've just realized that it's still happening and have found instructions for disabling it, but I need my HTML-expert husband to take a look at the code before I mess with it. So it will be a few more hours before I'm able to make that happen.

Sorry. I hate autostart. Fortunately for us all, I have my very own geek on permanent retainer (an extraordinarily useful thing in this day and age. I highly recommend it. You can't have mine, though-- I'm keeping him. Find your own.). 

So. My geek. He'll fix it. Stay tuned.

Update: FIXED! Thanks, Geek Honey!

_____

I've been thinking a lot this week about last week's post, and how the writing I've been doing lately has seemed divergent but is actually interconnected in very real and interesting ways. I've also been thinking about the fact that the writing itself is a sign of my progress and healing.

It's just so poetic and right that it's all coming together like this. Once again, that feeling of being exactly where I'm supposed to be and heading in the right direction is palpable. 

The fact that the writing part is both the vehicle and the destination for all of this work and healing is almost too synchronous for words. I think that's why it feels like a homecoming more than a departure, even though it is a big departure indeed from the person I've been in recent years. It's the kind of thing that seems like some sort of cosmic plan, if you believe in such things. 

If you don't, like me, you just have to chalk it up to an inner compass that has somehow managed to hold its course, despite all of life's best efforts (as well as your own) to throw it off.

It feels, right now, like it was inevitable that I would end up here; as irresistible as a force of nature. Tides ebb and flow. Apples fall from trees. Rivers find their way to the sea. The pathways of my life were always meant to lead me here, writing my story, weaving the threads together into a whole somehow greater than the sum of its parts.

At least, it feels like that in my best moments. A lot of those happen right here on this screen as I write this blog-- a source of pleasure and connection I never thought I'd achieve. This is where I find sense in the chaos. This is where the fog lifts and I see the road ahead and the ground I've gained and I feel, for real, like I'm doing something.

It had always felt like I was doing something important for myself, writing this blog. But these past few weeks have made me realize that I'm not just imagining it or hoping for it or making it up out of whole cloth-- my words have had an impact on people far beyond my scope.

I've been hearing from people from all over the world; the most amazing, generous, validating things. Regardless of the form it's taken, the message has been clear: You're on the right path. Keep writing.

That was unexpected. It's hard to take that in. I'm trying to take that in. What a gift.

I realize how much of what's happened with the writing so far has been accidental. Or serendipitous, at least. I'm at a point now where some things need to happen that are more deliberate than most of what I've done so far.

I've reached some sort of turning point, I think. Is this the crest of the hill? Is my head above water? Am I emerging from the dark valley I found myself in a year or more ago, when I felt like I'd finally been given a flashlight for the journey, only to discover that I'd been sitting in a closet for years?

As usual, I continue to see it before I feel it. I'm not yet operating on that level of engagement with my environment. But that matters less as I notice more about what's happening around me, felt or not. 

And something is happening. Something is definitely happening here.

So I'm paying attention. It still feels more like it comes from without than within, like it's happening to someone else instead of me, like it's being held at arm's length. But every once in a while, I get a little zing of recognition: I did that. I wrote that. I made that happen.

It's not perfect, but it's better than it was. Like I said, I'm trying hard to take it in. In the meantime, I'll just keep walking. I'll just keep writing. I'll just keep trusting that if the path is the right one-- and I feel certain that it is-- then the destination is indeed inevitable.

If you just keep moving, you will get there. Step by step by step.