Dream  

My Dream, Early Sunday Morning:

I am standing in The Colfax Market, my father’s neighborhood grocery store, where my parents worked side-by-side, seven days a week.

I scan and fully recognize every inch of it.

This place, the hub of my childhood, lives completely unchanged, in my dream.  
I hate it I love it here.

It is empty of people.

My parents are working, as always, still working.

My dad is walking, my mom standing by the register.

Without customers, they are still working.

I say, “Mom, Dad, it’s time to come home.”

They don’t hear me.

They don’t notice me.

I walk outside.

The sidewalk is deserted.  

I scan the block.

There are no people, no potential customers.

I go back inside.

“There’s nobody in here.  There is nobody outside,” my voice says.

“It’s time to come home.”

They don’t hear me.

They don’t notice me.

I look around.

I look inside myself.

I take a breath.

I leave.

I go home.

I am home.

The dream ends.

~~~

I am my parents’ child.  I am a Worker-Bee, cellularly sealed and delivered. The greatest joys of my life, until this past year, have lived within the arena of work. My identify, my satisfaction, my sense of purpose have all resided under the umbrella of work.

My career has been remarkable; I have infinite opportunities to be present with people, with you, all, as I continue to grow and learn, as we continue to grow and learn together.

I celebrate every moment of it.

And, it’s time to go home.

I am aware of how I have used my work as a hedge, a scooting away from intimacy, from connection.  Work as the primary pillar of my life has overshadowed too many other things.

It’s time to go home.

I’ll keep working—I’ll keep teaching and coaching and writing.  Yet my hope is that I will do it more wisely, that I will work a little less, that I will savor it more, that I will relax into it, rather than push against it.

It’s time to go home.

It’s time to struggle less, to savor more.

It’s time to quiet down my mind, to let my body and my heart run the show.

It’s time for the 10-year old Anxious Child that I am to turn the car keys over to the quieter, the easier Grown Up that I am.

It’s time for the Grown Up to drive.

More slowly.

It’s time to rest more.

It’s time to love more.

It’s time to walk more and play more.

It’s time to kiss more and celebrate more.

It’s time to honor my worry, to celebrate my anxiety as brilliant coping skills that no longer serve me.

It’s time to draw on the decades of evidence-based data that tells me—everything will be alright.

It’s time to remember that everything is already alright.

It’s time to go home to my heart, to my body.

It’s time to rest and relax.

It is time.

~~~

Dear Folks, what about you?  Fill in this blank: “For me, it’s time for _____”. Breathe and relax and consider. Let your pen or your keyboard or your mind simply flow.  And feel free to send on to me your responses. As always, I am aruni@rnetworx.com.  

Here’s to a week of ease, no matter what happens.

All blessings,
Aruni