"You Bloom Where You Are Planted" Episode Ninety-Four

Welcome to Honor Your Truth

The “Is It True?” Series Episode Ninety-Four

“You bloom where you are planted”

The point is to bloom. Bloom wherever you happen to be. We’ve all been planted here on Earth together… it matters not the place. I am not always cognizant of just how many people there are in the world and that there are so many different places and cultures. It’s cool, but kind of freaky when I do think about it. It’s a "Big World". I even have a song with that title. A song I wrote many years ago. When I wrote it, I was looking outside myself for any person, place or thing that would assure me I belonged, that I mattered. “anxious hearts lurk under each roof, of everywhere you are, in our haste, to change the place, and the lives we’ve been liven, we looked outside, looked around, instead of to all what we've been given.” I was restless and uncomfortable, and even though I was living where I had spent most of my life, I felt lost. I didn't fit. I knew the streets of Chicago like the back of my hand, but I never felt the peace of home. Just when the chaos would begin to settle and I would start to feel the ground, I’d also want to run.

I thought I’d move to Oregon. We used to go there every summer when I was growing up. I figure it was the nostalgia mostly. I have many fond memories of that time. I would sit for hours and watch the waves crash against the rocky coast. The water would rush through canals and crevices you’d be sure to drown in if you fell. I always feared dying at the Devils Churn or the Devils Punchbowl yet I’d go there tempting fate. It seemed something always kept me from feeling safe. No matter how much I liked a thing, I feared it just the same. I loved the feel of the salt air brushing against my face and the way it whipped my hair around. I would stroll along the beach in a wistful trance and fantasize about what my life would be like. I wanted to go back to those days when I believed that anything was possible if I only dared to dream. I thought I must go there and recapture what I lost…the innocence of a child, the eagerness of a kid. If only I could go there, then my “real life” would start. I would finally feel at home within myself. I’d connect my center to the ground and I could breathe again.

Selling happily the things you wished would disappear, even though their spirit lingers in the air and in the tears. You leave behind what you can’t carry. You can wash the man out of the hair, but the ghosts keep turning up. You see him at the Walgreen’s, at the SA or the Cub, when you haven’t had your coffee; you’re puffy or messed up. So you pack up what’s leftover and you cram it in your car. You head for greener pastures, sometimes near, sometimes far. This, my friends, is known in the recovery circle as a "geographical cure." The accusation would sound something like this “you know she’s doin’ a geographical.” Although most in the circle would argue that it doesn’t, I believe it does work….sometimes. Sometimes one needs to get out of dodge and start over. Maybe they can’t set boundaries like they’d like to, or there are way too many memories, or for whatever reason a fresh start sounds good. It works like a jump start but you gotta keep it going. The glitch is whatever you’re running from never really leaves. It resurfaces. It's you. And it's you who has to change.

I was running from a lot of things. I never made it out to Portland. I landed in St. Paul. Not exactly the coastal breeze I was looking for. I hid. I had secrets. I never talked about my life, what happened and what my dreams were. I never forgave myself for all I failed at, what I did or didn’t do, what I said or didn’t say. I could have been anyone if I wanted, but I couldn’t be myself. I sometimes wish I had another life. I feel insignificant like George Bailey did. I’ve seen the movie. I know it’s not good. I sometimes wish there were do-overs like friends let you have when you were young. I’d probably make the same mistakes…and probably o...

1. By: honoryourtruth
2. Categories People & Stories
3. Views 216
4. Added :30-Jan-10
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