The family I knew and was defined by is no longer.  My parents are gone. My sister is gone.  Another sister is gone and so are the ties that held me to a family I grew up with and in.  Since the summer I have come to realize that I have made my own family.  The ties that held me to a past I did not choose or want are gone.  They have been severed.  What is left is the family I now very consciously choose.

I gave Neil a poster for his 60th Birthday that has a couple in an old two-seater pickup truck, my favorite car in the world.  They are driving on a long expansive road that is completely open and appears to go for miles with no one in sight.  It says;

‘Don’t look back, you’re not going that way.’  

I am no longer going backwards.  I am no longer tied to the pulls that kept me from truly moving forward into my life.  The road ahead is wide open, waiting for me to live into.  I am riding on that road with Neil beside me and aware that what has held me back for so many years is now gone.  It is past.  I have moved past it and am going forward, breathing in the possibilities of my life and my future.

I’m writing this to you because you have helped me find my courage.  Through your comments I have come to know that I am not alone and, that we depend on one another to keep moving forward.  Through this writing and my work within the Gestalt community I have developed the strength to see and distinguish between what is truly my life’s path and all the other roads that lead to places I do not want to go anymore and don’t belong.  I have created the path to my true family of commitment and belonging.

I have found my self.  

I know to whom I belong.

As May Sarton says in the opening lines of her profound poem of self discovery,

‘Now I Become Myself’

Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before–“
(………)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!

I am here standing on my own two feet without anything holding me back.  I’m ready to hop into my favorite old pickup, free from baggage and see where the road takes me.  I have enough love in my heart, courage in my bones and wind behind me to travel as far as I want.

I’m sure I’ll be needing a tune up every now and again.  For now,  I’m moving forward.