Stargazer

Maybe he’s eight years old?  It’s hard for me to gauge anymore, with my child rearing years indelible in the rear-view mirror.  He’s on his bicycle, wearing a helmet, coasting down the street I’m walking in the glorious, gauzy light of a dawning Saturday morning. I expect a parent, or some other adult to be in tow, and I’m a little surprised when no one materializes.  He is alone.  I wonder how many times he had to beg at his parents’ feet to be allowed out the door unchaperoned to taste his own burgeoning abandon.

With more than 150 days logged in this pandemic, I find myself deeply rooted in monotony.  My shoes have worn ruts in the same handful of roads. Every day is ground hog’s day, a haunting routine I struggle to break.  It does not go unnoticed nor unappreciated that I am employed, and largely unaffected economically.  For this I am grateful.  I am fortunate to be wrestling with the challenges at the tip of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs because I am blessed with what must be fulfilled in order to keep climbing.

Those who know me well have heard me repeat my belief that this time will transform us if we allow it.  It’s the allowing that is hard.  I have known for a long time I need a change. I made a deliberate choice three months ago to set the wheels in motion during this unprecedented tumultuous time, and now I am suffering the interstice. It would be super easy for me to blame others, to blame the times, to second guess my choice to disrupt myself amid the mother of all disruptions. And yet this is exactly what I signed up for, eyes wide open.  I have walked into the fire.

Opportunities that allow me to self-actualize, to become the best version of myself that I can possibly be have not materialized.  Or have they?  Maybe the opportunities are in front of me, just not in a package that I expect?  Or maybe the package isn’t attractive enough yet because I haven’t been a part of creating what’s inside?  Why am I hiding in my safe yet powerless corner expecting someone to deliver to me my dream job?  Where is the child in me pleading her parent to allow her to saddle up and coast down the street, unattended chasing new adventure? 

Oh, the questions!  The hard, hard questions howling to be answered.

On my walk back from the coffee shop, I hear a peel of laughter and look to see the boy again, pedaling effortlessly with a look of sheer joy on his face, lost in his imagination. As his delicious giggle pierces the quiet of the dawn, it dawns on me that this is exactly how we transform.  When we allow ourselves the permission of time and space to revel and ruminate in what could be, we give birth to the world we want for ourselves. This is where the magic happens. It’s time to hop on my bike and dream.