on getting further and further away from center

 (“blooming” – print available here, original sold)

I’ve been feeling a bit mixed up lately. You know that feeling that something isn’t quite right, but you’re not sure exactly what it is, but you just know you feel off? Yes, that’s it. I just feel a little off.

Maybe it’s because it’s the end of Hello Soul, Hello Business’ first e-course (it was so good). Maybe it’s because I recently started using Facebook the way it was intended to be used which means I’ve spent hours pouring over photos and updates from old highschool and college friends which makes me, I don’t know, a bit nostalgic and weepy over the motion of time and how quickly it passes. Maybe it’s because True + John have been battling fierce colds since arriving home from our trip. Maybe it’s because all my Spring deadlines have passed and I’m not pushing through any big projects right now. Maybe it’s because the sun has barely been seen around here and I’m desperate for it. Maybe it’s because I can’t help but feel myself getting older and there is some melancholy about that for me because I sometimes miss my pre-mamahood life.

I find myself thinking about the last five years of this art biz whirlwind, what I could have done differently, what choices I made. There has been so much joy, so much momentum, so much motion, so many amazing opportunities, so much growth – a period of time that has truly felt like taking flight into life, love, and art. Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m on the other side of that long flight – the grounded, stable side of it, yet I have a very real sense that something important got lost in the travel and whiplash that has been my life these last five years.

I’m not totally sure what it is that got lost, or forgotten, but I just know it’s important. I often hear women talk about how they lose themselves to motherhood, to broken marriages, to work, only to wake up one day and make drastic changes in an effort to find themselves again.  Although I’m not in this specific predicament, I can see how it happens – how tiny, micro decisions that we make every day of our lives collect over time to create new ways of seeing ourselves that leave us wondering how the heck we got here, who the heck we are. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the many micro decisions we make. Perhaps it has to do with ONE tiny decision we make: the decision to be present or not to be. If we’re not present, then where are we? We’re lost. Maybe not everyday, but over time not being spiritually present and alive to our lives means we lose tiny pieces of who we are along the way. No wonder we lose ourselves. No wonder we don’t fully feel alive.

What I’m learning in my current journey of feeling a little lost is this: Before becoming a mama,  before life became really full with art and business, I had all the time in the world to be present. It was easy then. It was natural. But somewhere recently, likely 18 months ago when everyday life required a certain kind of focus 24/7 with the birth of my son, the on/off switch of being present to my life, who I was, the people in my life got turned off. It had already been partially turned off – perhaps the dimmer was on – in the years leading up to True’s birth when my attention was on growing my art business, a time when things were happening fast. And now, as things are settling down to a comfortable pace on both fronts (motherhood + art biz), I am realizing that perhaps I lost some pieces of myself by taking for the granted the decision to pay attention, to be present, to align myself with my center every single day. Without alignment, we lose our center, we become lost. The more lost we become, the further away we get from our friends, our connectedness, the things that make up who we are.

So that’s where I’m at, friends. Working on finding my center where my heart is most open, where my sense of belonging is most alive, where connectedness breathes easy. It will come. I’m sure of it. I now understand that the ease of having it before art and biz and mamahood was a different time, an easier time. And now, in the maze of diaper changes, nap schedules, work schedules, and all the seconds of the day that get eaten up with the minutia, it will take a bit more practice and focus to become a part of everyday life again.

Just as my painting above says, here’s to growing, trusting, dreaming, discovering, feeling alive, and blooming. We are all meant for these journeys.