While I was sitting at a stop light on my way to get my car checked over, somewhat annoyed - because some $30 was going to disappear out of my checking account - an account that has been on a constant roller-coaster of highs and lows the last few years - I found myself focusing on the cars tail lights ahead of me. Almost complete circles of red lights - yet my gaze went to the section of unlit lights, and I got to thinking.

My light went out a while ago, or started diminishing, and has gone so far, that sometimes my thoughts scare me and I instinctively start to pray - to a God I lost contact with many moons ago. I have many lights on... the one for service, many for hope, love, wishes, too many to count for caring about people - but even those flicker on and off these days. I find myself feeling numb when I hear of disasters, wars, and awful things... like, gee, one more thing that is negative, what else is new? Most times I feel helpless.

I have lost touch with me. My light is not only flickering, it's dangerously numb, and when it's on, it's dim and not all there. I probably sound like a psychologist's dream - so much to be analyzed and even so much more to let go. This is why I am moving. I am leaving behind things dearly close to me, so close that I have fallen into a pit of stressed out, anxiety stricken, sometimes what seems like an attitude of bipolar depression. (I tend to be a dramatic person) It's like that saying - you never know what you have till it's gone. Well, I did not realize all I had, till I decided to go, and even though I realize it now - I am still going. I am desperately searching for the light switch to turn my light back on. And to do that, I have to follow my heart. Period.

So while my heart is literally breaking with hurt and questions and concerns, it flutters with the possibility that these next 10 months, being in a place of beauty and being one with nature
(for me, nature has always given me a feeling of oneness, that I am connected to the earth, and it is connected to me - and thus, all of humanity is connected in one huge circle - I believe this concept of responsibility to others, and connectedness has been lost - it's not who owns what, who has what and I fell into this dark hole too) that I can get back to my roots and mend. It saddens me more that I feel the need to 'mend,' as I did not suffer what some suffer - disease, abuse, horrible suffering, trauma, wars - but I have known my own forms of loss, grief, and in Elizabeth Gilbert's words, I, "experience all the world's sadness as my own. Everything sad leaked through me and left damp traces behind." I am still, thoroughly damp -and wish it was my bonsai plant instead of me.

So, I am also following this advice from Gilbert and her book, Eat Pray Love - one of the most enlightening books I have read, and that I started reading after I decided to move... "You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight." I have always been amazed with simple things - believed simple gestures make all the difference, that a smile can truly turn someones day around, holding a door can start a pay it forward movement, and that we all must never remain stagnant... and I have become my own form of stagnant - so I must keep going... keep moving... seek adventure, and in doing so, continue to give back - because that is my calling.