SHE AIN'T HEAVY, just one brick shy of a load

Do you recall phrases such as; "She's one brick shy of a load" or, "One fry short of a Happy Meal", "Their elevator doesn't go to the top floor", or "The lights are on but no one's home"?   -  Overly used cliches implying the lack of intelligence or less than ness of a person.  I thought about that recently in light of my "change of life" (I don't mean menopause either), divorce.  Having lived for 25 years with ingrained patterns of living and thinking and being, I am wanting to purposefully lighten the load.   I am coming to know that there is a magic hidden in those cliches.  Less Is Better.  Lots of things I can think of are better when less of them.  Weighing less is better - you feel better, look better and might live longer.  Owning less stuff is better too - less to keep track of/manage/fix/store/clean/move.  Offering less than asking price is better - you save money.  Sometimes less ingredients are better too - more cleanly sharply tasting food.    What about my heart and mind?  How am I going to get rid of stuff - to make it less, to clean it out?  I coined a phrase recently, "let my crazy loose".   I have been letting things out of my heart and mind that have been stuck in there for many, many years.  It is cathartically and magically freeing and healing.  Why did I not freely release years ago these thoughts, feelings and decisions that have let my crazy loose?  It's amazing how when you sit and look over your life backwards how myopic you become.  This is what I discovered in the past few weeks about myself and my decisions and thoughts over the last 25-30 years.

• The way I was raised and who I was created to be to flourish had a bit of a collision course as a teenager.  
• From the ages of 16-22 you pretty much only know how to react and not thoroughly consciously act.
• I didn't want to go to the college my parents made me go to or major in what they wanted me to major in.
• I loved someone deeply who chose to marry another and I reacted to that with my own decisions that were destructive and did not flourish my life.  I still love that person and always will.
• I married because of wanting to escape college and cover my hurt of losing the person I truly loved. 
• That's all the wrong reasons to marry someone.
• At 19 you aren't smart enough to put those pieces all together.
• Creativity and spark are diminished when operating in heaviness.
• You cannot make your spouse have a meaningful relationship with you or anyone else.
• I am gritty and can endure.
• Rivlets of pleasure can carry us for periods of time.
• I am extremely uninhibited and free spirited and am recapturing the fullness of those things.
• I want to experience more of life than I did in my first half - even if it is without marriage.
• I wish I would have clearly known what I know now back then so with vision I could have made different choices.
• I have to forgive myself for being young and not being able to fully see - to only react and not even know I was doing it.
• I want deep intellectual, soul charging relationships of all kinds and eventually one that includes deep passion.
• I can't undo the stuff behind me. 
• I can't live for others or their expectations or to accommodate their emotional or spiritual grid. 
• I can only live to fulfill who God made me to be.  I'm figuring that out presently and plan to spend the rest of my life dancing in it.
• Sisters, brother-in-laws, close friends, bosses and just those special people in your life all constitute this redefined form of a family.
• I will flourish.
• Words are healing - to think them, write them and speak them.
• I have to write words.
• I probably no doubt at times failed the person I was married to - how to let that go knowing I did the best I could.
• Holding something huge inside for too long is painful.
• Releasing something held for years and years is liberating, magical and dance worthy.
• I love myself.  I mean I LOVE MYSELF.
• I still have quite a bit of sexy in and around me even in my forties.
• Telling people who truly love you bad news or disappointing things about your life or yourself doesn't turn out as bad as you think it will.  Those who truly love you want you to win in life and stand right there with you.
• Irreverence and laughter is a huge part of me.
• Thinking great thoughts, reading great books, having stimulating conversations that challenge my mind, experiencing great music, feeling things deeply, creatively expressing myself through words, pushing my body physically, experiencing God through my voyage daily, thinking openly and freely, throwing my head back in laughter, leaving someone better for having been in my presence, combining both reverence and irreverence to view and experience life, loving my friends and family fiercely.....all things that define who I am.
• I would like to someday quit looking back as much and merely look forward.
• I made it out.  I really did it.

Really looking forward to being one brick shy of a load now:)