2016. Ready to Roll? Yes I am.
9am, first day of 2016. Everyone’s still getting over their hangovers. I’m writing. This year I’m doing everything that matters, and nothing that doesn’t. I will be singularly focused on what I want to achieve this year.
Yesterday I went to church, just to listen. It was not a service. I’m not religious. I grew up in a Catholic household, but going to church was more part of our family’s lifestyle, than it was a spiritual experience. As I grew up, I started exploring what spirituality meant for me. Eventually I started meditating daily to focus my mind on how I wanted my life to turn out. It’s served me well. Nothing having to do with religion, just me quieting my mind, and focusing on what I want from the river of life.
Back in 2008, I was going through a dark period of my life… I had taken time off consulting to help my husband build his insurance practice, and as time progressed, our cash flow dwindled. I, a seasoned IT consultant / CPA was trying to make it in the world of insurance sales, and failing miserably. I needed to do my own thing again. My confidence, my self worth had close to shattered. I wasn’t happy.
Christmas 2008. As Lawrence and I drove through downtown Edmonton, I suddenly had the urge to go to Christmas mass. Lawrence looked at me quizzically wondering whence this sudden epiphany had come. A good sport as always, he accompanied me to Midnight mass. We were sitting through the mass when suddenly a message came to me, a midst the Christmas carols. “Welcome home.” I lost it right then and there. It was like a weight had been lifted off. I suddenly felt light. In the next few weeks entering 2009, I was meditating upon re-entering the consulting market, as I had done every day for the last few months. But this time, I did it with happy anticipation… that everything I wanted for my life, I knew would come to me. I knew it to be true. Three weeks later, all the while reaching out to my network of recruiters, I landed a gig that would put me back on the consulting path again. All was right in the world again.
Whenever my life goes to shit, I go to church to listen. Last year at this time, I was pregnant with our second, and we knew something was wrong with the child. Very wrong. So wrong that we were at a crossroads with how to proceed. Either we move forward as is, or we hit the reset button and try again. And by that I mean, we terminate and try again. Now this post isn’t about pro-choice or pro-life, so I’m not going to get into it. And if it bothers you, well, stop reading now.
So again I found myself sitting in a pew at 2pm on New Years Eve, praying… praying that there would be another way, because none of the choices we had in front of us were favourable. My uncontrollable sobs echoed throughout the cavernous cathedral. As I finally quieted down, a message came to me. “All children are beautiful”… “but it’s up to you if you will accept or decline.” And I knew that this message was delivered without judgment or influence one way or the other. The rest of 2015 transpired as it did. It was hard, but I had good support. I survived. For the rest of 2015, and possibly forevermore, I was afraid to set foot into church, what with the choice that I made.
… until one day last week. The day before Christmas, when my mother-in-law got baptized. I skipped out on her baptism, but I again had the inspiration to go to church and listen. I was apprehensive. Scared, even. But I wanted to go. I even said out loud, “Don’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.” I drove to the cathedral, took a deep breath, and opened the huge wooden door into the church. The familiar scent of mild incense filled my nose, and I walked quietly to the same pew that I sat in the year prior. I offered a prayer, and then just sat and quieted my mind. Nothing. I thought, maybe I had been exiled having done what I had done. Then a message came. “Go light a candle, and we’ll chat. I peered over to the left where I had lit a candle for my child the year prior. I took out some money, slipped it into the offering box, took a tealight and dropped it into the same spot as last year. Then I sat back down.
“How is she?” I asked, despite knowing there hadn’t been a gender assigned.
“We found a different path for her. It’s complete. There is nothing there anymore.”
Instantly I tried to feel sad, but instead, to my surprise, I felt nothing. There was a peace about me. I sat there a little more, and a final message came. “Come and hang out more often.”
With that, I smiled, put on my coat and left, with the potential to come and chill again, but I made no promise.
Yesterday I decided to go to church again. I stepped into the cathedral, and went to my pew, half expecting a Devine high-five for coming back so quickly. Nothing. After offering a prayer, I listened. I knew I had a lot of major projects that I wanted to get done this year: building my blog, website, monetizing it, as a exit strategy out of trading time for money, so I can raise my children the way I want to raise them. It’s a huge endeavour.
“Do all the things that matter, and none of the things that don’t”
That’s good. Then “why are you here?”.. To which I replied, “I don’t know. I wasn’t searching for meaning, I truly just figured I would come to listen with an open mind. The organist was practicing in the background. One final message: “Be singularly focused.” With that, the organ music swelled like the final processional hymn and I knew it was my cue to go. I was equipped to begin 2016.
2015 sucked, but it’s done. 2016 is a brand new start, and I am optimistic. I am fresh. I am focused.