Seven Days In
Written by Georgina
“Sometimes, things don’t work out. Not because you don’t deserve it, but because you deserve so much more.” Anonymous
Recently hearing myself reeling off a list of plans to my bestie for the next six months, I burst out laughing. If 2020 is anything to go by why am I even bothering, it all went to hell on a handbasket on a number of fronts.
Without notice.
Well thank you universe.
Ironically, I’m sitting in my aptly named breakup chair. A soft, retro piece that held me when I couldn’t hold myself. Brought on a whim last year when you guessed it, things broke up.
That chair followed me from room to room, becoming my stability when life rocked and crashed and burned around me.
And don’t get me started on 2019.
Naturally, there was so much love, kindness, and connection, you can’t have one without the other. The tenderness of human beings willingly sitting aside you in the dark is deeply indescribable.
Declaring at the beginning of 2020 my intention to go with the flow of the universe seemed perfect, you know what arrived, what left, I would accept.
I stood standing at the end of that year, hands on my hips asking what the hell? Unbeknown to me the universe sanctioned ongoing surrender, lasting all year long. I curled up in the breakup chair often.
As 2021 came into view, it was a bright, sunny Thursday, the seventh of January to be exact. Day three of a new job and hurting, I held it together all day until I reached the safety of my car.
Dialling my trusted friend bursting into tears as soon as she answered. Her usual soothing self and after my sobbing settled, she said, “I know you are in a lot of pain and I’m sorry, but G it’s seven days in this new year and look at what’s unfolding in your life already. I can’t wait to see what happens for you in 2021.”
Boom. Everyone needs a friend like that. The velvet sledgehammer kind.
Plans are illusions keeping me sedated, lulled into a false security. Yet the truth is everything and anything can change in a moment.
Going from breathing deeply to gasping for air in a millisecond. We all can.
In January I announced from the breakup chair with only myself as a witness, I’d be coming at 2021 and set my intention to turn up in every moment like I was meant to be there.
My new job was awful. A conveyor belt of mental health. I saw a position elsewhere. Applied. Three weeks later I had my second job of 2021.
No travel to Europe for my impending upgrade to Level 50. Thanks pandemic. I landed upon a trip away once a month all year long. What an exquisite mix of solo, family and friends so far.
I doubled up in May. My birthday, my rules.
Almost like the universe is conspiring for my greater good, everyone’s greater good, I cannot ignore the unyielding voice no longer wanting a back seat in my life.
On the seventh day of January seeing beyond a distressing afternoon was skewed, nor would I have believed that today I signed a contract to sell in the spring. Now with indicated directions, let’s not call them plans, up until the auction date.
After that, well I might need to call a friend. Again.
As Rumi says, “As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”
Damn. I hope so.
Picture an elastic band as it’s pulled back to maximum tension before it’s launched as I’m once again finding solace in my chair.
Inherent in me is the magic of living beyond my own comfort, on the edges of what I think I know. Therein lies possibility: of places, people and adventures I can’t begin to imagine, just like I couldn’t back when I was seven days in.