On the Road – Part 2
In June 2017, I left my marriage of thirty-six years, my home, and most of my stuff, with no idea where I was going or where I would end up. I wasn’t homeless. And I wasn’t without resources. My ex was, and is, a good man, but we lived basically separate lives, and I’d come to understand that our paths were meant to part at this stage. I needed to fly, and he wanted to stay rooted right where he was.
I’d been a student of universal law for four years, at that point, and I’d become, not only pretty good at what I call the sign language of the Universe, but I’d learned to feel into a situation, whether it was for me or not, whether it resonated as truth.
And so, when it became clear that I needed to take a huge leap of faith and leave (an angel literally came to me in a dream and told me that it was time to go), I did.
Honestly, I didn’t feel like I had too much to lose, at that point. I was lonely and unhappy in my marriage. The kids were grown. My romance writing career was either on hiatus or over, but the ideas for new stories were nowhere to be found.
I was not a young woman, but neither was I old. I still had so much I wanted to do with my life! But not in the usual, muggle ways. I had zero interest in volunteering at the animal shelter, or playing pickleball, or learning to knit.
I wanted to travel the stars, have deep discussions with angels, and write fantastical tales that would change people’s lives. I wanted a partner on this journey, a romance for the ages, and I longed to experience all of the psychic gifts I’d been told I possessed in abundance.
Rather than going on cruises or standing in long, hot lines at foreign tourist destinations, I wanted to travel around the world with highly gifted humans doing deep healing work for the Earth and humanity – mystery schools and gridwork and the like, none of which I actually know anything about, but they sound so cool! (If anyone knows of a tour outfit who specializes in travel with a deep, otherworldly purpose, let me know.)
I wanted – still want – to live an extraordinary, non-muggle life. Do I have a wild imagination? One hundred percent. Do I actually think any of this is possible? A qualified ‘yes’. I truly believe that, in theory, literally anything is possible because we create our own realities. However, the believing comes first, and that’s the tricky part. ‘Believing’ in theory is a whole lot easier than ‘believing’ in fact. But I’m working on it.
So, back to 2017. During the four months I lived with my soon-to-be ex, as we worked out our finances. He found a lawyer and was very anxious for me to find one, understandably concerned that the wrong lawyer might try to take him to the cleaners, so to speak. But I knew, I trusted, that the right lawyer would come along. If I had patience, and faith in my own ability to recognize the path appearing in front of me.
So I searched lightly. What I mean by this is, I googled divorce lawyers in the area, trusting that I’d be led to the right one, if that was the path. But nothing resonated. Nothing felt right. My husband’s lawyer offered a couple of suggestions, but those didn’t resonate either. I reached out to a neighbor who was an attorney, but she didn’t get back to me for months – apparently I’d had an old email of hers. One thing after another either didn’t work, or didn’t feel right, but I wasn’t concerned.
I knew the right person would show up. I knew it.
Finally, she did. I found my lawyer through my dentist, as it turned out. My dentist and I got to chatting during my exam and she told me she had a friend who had a wonderful lawyer. She promised to get the name and text it to me that night, and she did! (I barely knew this dentist, by the way. I usually saw her partner.)
Within the week, I’d had my one and only meeting with my lawyer. She was perfect for me, for us, because my husband and I had already worked everything out to our mutual satisfaction. And my new lawyer, who was a woman in her 60’s, was completely comfortable with this. Our respective lawyers filed the paperwork and it was done. Easy peasy, which I find is generally the way things work when I wait until the door opens. In this case, until the right lawyer appeared.
So, the financial and legal aspects of this separation were settled, but the practical remained. Where was I going to go? One of the behind-the-scenes things that I’ve learned is that our souls place desires in our hearts. And the one thing I knew with certainty is that I wanted, needed, to be rootless for awhile. Completely and utterly free.
As I’ve mentioned, I was lucky. I had resources, plus family and friends. My BFF lived in a different town and offered me an entire closet to store my out-of-season clothes so that I didn’t have to carry everything with me, wherever I went. Plus, my parents still lived in the house in Florida where I’d gone to high school, a house on the water with a pool. I had no desire to live with them, nor would my dad have been terribly open to that, but they were delighted for me to visit on a regular basis.
The date had been set, I was leaving at the end of June, but as June approached, I still had no idea where I was going to go. I had a hazy plan of heading west, maybe visiting cousins along the way and staying mostly in Airbnbs. Maybe I’d visit all of the National Parks. Or see how many states I could spend a night in. Truly, I had no plan other than to follow the energy, feel for the next best step, every moment of every day.
How did I do this? How do I still? Well, I’ve come to recognize that if something is for me, it feels good. If it’s not, I get a clenching in my gut. I’d be lying if I said I always paid attention to how everything feels. As often as not, I realize something isn’t for me when I get roadblocked, often in a weird way. Like getting a pop-up when you type in “Amazon.com” that says “This url doesn’t exist”. Uh, pretty sure it does. Weird things like that always stop me and have me looking for a different path, the better path for me.
So, the days were ticking down, I was throwing or giving away so much stuff. My husband was happy to keep whatever I didn’t want to take of the stuff that had been ours together. And I really didn’t want much – mostly a few kitchen items. But my personal items, had to either be packed up in boxes that he promised to ship to me once I was settled somewhere, be packed to go with me, or be disposed of.
I won’t say I wasn’t nervous about leaving with no plan, but I was excited, too. And very much at peace with it. I knew how to follow the energy. I thought. An incident during my visit with my parents in Florida, a month before my departure, shook my confidence, though.
It was an innocuous situation that, in hindsight, was important. We often don’t see our blocks or fears until they’re triggered. My dad, though 94 at the time, was in excellent health, both physically and mentally. Mom had mild dementia, so Dad ran all the errands, went to the fitness center three days a week, and prepared all of their meals (microwaving the meals I cooked and stored in their freezer during my regular visits).
On this particular visit, I noticed a bunch of boxes of food in the topmost kitchen cabinet, things like packets of grits, and an opened box of Bisquick. I didn’t look at the dates, I just knew my mom hadn’t cooked, let alone been steady enough to use a step stool, in years. That stuff was old. So I climbed up there, pulled it all down, and threw it all out. I’m not sure if I specifically tuned in, but it felt like the right thing to do.
But lying in bed that night, I had a sudden, terrible thought. My sister-in-law, who lived nearby, spent a lot of time with my parents when I wasn’t there. What if that food hadn’t been old at all, but was her stash that she used to cook for them, or herself when she was helping them?
Feeling suddenly queasy, I asked my guides if I had indeed thrown out my sister-in-law’s food. They said yes. OMG. I was going to have to tell her what I’d done, then try to replace it all for her. I felt awful.
I barely slept that night, and all the next day I felt so bad, castigating myself for not checking the dates on the boxes and not checking with her first. When she came over later that day, I told her I’d thrown away all of the boxes in that upper cabinet. Her response? “Oh, good. That stuff was ancient.”
So, it wasn’t hers, after all. What a relief! And yet…
I thought my guides had told me it was hers. This sent me into a tailspin, because if I’d gotten this wrong, what else had I gotten wrong? What if I hadn’t been hearing spiritual guidance at all, ever? What if I’d made the decision to step off the ledge, believing spirit would be my net, but there wasn’t, and had never been, anyone there?
I didn’t actually believe that I’d gotten it all wrong. But I’d blown up my life with the express intent of following spiritual guidance, and now I was having serious doubts that I could.
Now what was I supposed to do? Tell my soon-to-be ex, “just kidding?” If I could have taken it all back in that moment, I think I might have. Well, it would have been tempting, at least. But I’d gone way too far for that. The only way forward was to continue as planned.
Little did I realize that, with this meltdown, I’d shaken my team in spirit almost as much as myself. They didn’t understand how I could have come so far and yet still have such doubts. But it was a good experience for me.
Not only did it trigger a massive fear that had been lurking just beneath the surface, and needed to be seen, but it also taught me how critical it is to get in the right frame of mind, the right vibration, before I connect with spirit, if I want to get any kind of accurate communication. By asking if the food had been my sister-in-law’s – while I was feeling such shame for throwing it out without asking first – I connected to nothing but my own fearful mind.
Once I calmed down, I renewed my determination to see this through. Was I certain it was going to work the way I hoped it would? Not at all. But I knew that, if nothing else, I would learn a lot about myself, and grow in the process. And, boy, was I right.
(To be continued.)