Life will come and life will go. I have been remembering happy memories lately of my life with my sweetie, Steve. Many days spent in the mountains swimming and making love in the rivers. We were young and able and I am so glad we made these really rich life memories. Now, we are living a quiet life. Self care for both of us has become a full time job as Steve is physically disabled and I am in a new phase of dealing with my mental disability which is ever evolving. Lately, I have realized that I am entering a new phase of acceptance. Healing sometimes looks like unraveling and sitting with the uncomfortable feelings. For many years, though self care was a priority, I was tackling it and trying to master it aggressively. I still was in some sort of denial, I realize now. Seeing Steve deal with becoming physically disabled, I was also able to enter into a kind of acceptance for my own disability that I had never reached before. I am enough. I am meant to fit my nature, my bed. In my thirties I still was trying to shape myself instead of accepting the shape that I already am. I am thirty nine now, and I know that my forties will be about moving slowly through my karma, sitting in stillness, self acceptance and reaching new levels of self love.

I am happy. I have a sweet home, a loving relationship with a man I respect so much, and dear close relationships with my mother, my sister and my father. I am learning to be an Aunt, and learning to love a child, our own child, makes me cry because she is so beautiful and such an amazing miracle and blessing. This will be the closest I will come to loving a child in my family because I will never bear my own children. I am now in peri-menopause and this has come to symbolize so much. It is about redefining my disability, it is about self love and self care on new levels, it is about recovering my youthful identity, it is about complete transformation of spirit, body, mind and chi. 

So as I write these words, I am listening to music from my teen years, and feeling at home in my humble house that Steve and I spend all of our time in and maintaining. We love our space and our animals. And we spend much time here as well in contemplation, meditation, and partaking in restorative pastimes. Life is not what it once was, but all of those experiences we had are still with us today. As we dedicate ourselves to self care and living acceptance of our mental and physical limitations, we also become expert maintainers. We are invested in our future and our health. Hopefully, as we do so, we inspire others and find a way to care for our universe and planet as well. Really, getting in touch and slowing down results in more sustainable living. As we connect with ourselves, we reconnect with our intricate environments and the web of life that surrounds us, and we care too for our world.