Choosing Rest when the Spin Cycle of Life Happens

April and May came in and rattled me around like a hurricane.

I launched a membership I’d been nurturing for months.

My Uncle Ray, for whom I’d been caring for four years, finally succumbed to his multiple diseases, and left our world.

My 13-year-old daughter celebrated a zoom Bat Mitzvah in which she read the Torah powerfully in the presence of 200+ people who love and support her.

We packed up our home and left for (what we hope will be) a month of repairs.

I observed the 35th anniversary of my parents’ tragic car accident. I was nearly 12 when they passed.

As I closed out this season of life happening all at once, I was tired. I reminded myself that it’s not always like this. Though when you’re in one of these spin cycles it’s easy to think this is simply the new pace. I must learn to adjust. I must armor up and be ready.

Instead of believing those thoughts, I actively chose to disrupt the speed and the busyness and the need to figure out all of my next moves.

I chose rest.

I chose quiet.

I chose compassion.

I chose grace.

I chose to sit in uncertainty just a little while longer knowing that I didn’t need to have all the answers.

Practically speaking, that means pushing off a funeral for Uncle Ray until we are ready in the summer or fall.

It means growing my Career Command membership slowly so I can truly take in the power and meaning and magic that lives within the community I’ve built.

It means continuing to create the kind of family where both at once I’m proud of the stable, inclusive and loving home I offer up to my kids AND also I’m sad for my inner 12-year-old who didn’t have those things. How beautiful that the joy in the family I’ve created has offered a direct path to my own healing that still longs to happen.

Part of the healing is knowing I don’t need to be fixed. I need to be loved. That is a practice I can offer myself with the people I choose, the life I design, the communities I serve and the honesty of my words.