Imagination is the first step toward action. You have to be able to hope before you move forward. Otherwise, you are always acting out of fear.

— Gloria Steinem

I’ve been missing.  Maybe you noticed. Maybe you didn’t. I did.  I really noticed. I missed my writing, my friends, my life. I’ve been in and out of the hospital. Yes, the Mast Cells have been dictating my life…again, still.

Not long ago I was in India walking the streets of Dharamsala. I remember the energy of chanting with the Monks at Sherab Ling Monastery questioning if perhaps I was finally home, and if I should stay.You could touch the energy it was so powerful. It felt so right. I remember the smells, the people, the traffic and chaos. I remember this last part of my life.

Way before that…I had a life. I remember running miles on concrete floors as an RN, handling life and death, split second decisions while multi tasking a hundred other things at the same time. I loved it.

Even before that…I had a life. I remember jumping out of bed in anticipation of what my day would bring. What wondrous and fun things my little girl and I would do that day.  I remember laughing and dancing in the kitchen while baking cookies with her. I remember her giggles when i acted silly.

Even before that…I had a life. I remember riding my bike from East Toronto to West Toronto and not being tired. I remember skinny dipping at “The Farm” in Northern Ontario at midnight, candles floating on logs and jugs of peach schnapps, fish nibbling at my toes.  I remember laughing until I cried, jamming in the farmhouse, playing Teddy Bear’s Picnic to the bears on the piano way out in the wilderness all alone and joyous in just being. I had a life back then. A big life.

Who Stole My Life? Where did it go and when exactly.

I had a life, a good life.

Erich Fromm says:

A mothers love is bliss, is peace, it need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. If it is there, it is like a blessing, if it is not there, 

 it is as if all thebeauty had gone out of life. 

For adoptees that is just reality.

Not long ago I found my birth mother and siblings. After a lifetime of searching I found my family. I was so excited to begin a new life in a family, in my family. Sadly, my birth mother passed away before we had a chance to be mother and daughter. My siblings have history that will always be their’s. I understand that.  I thought we could build a history and make memories. Apparently not.

Every time I go to the hospital I lose a bit of myself. Health changes quickly, time is precious and treasured. As I write this, I realize I did have a very big life. If you’ve read my two memoirs:

Finding Heart Horse, Memoir of Survival

The Wall of Secrets, Memoir of The Almost Daughter

 you will see how much life I packed in to a relatively short time. Perhaps that’s why I feel lost. I’ve had to drastically change the way my life works.

I’m creating a new vision for my life.

It wasn’t stolen after all, it’s just changed.

I’ve come full circle.  My plan on retirement was to work with Street Kids and now with the books and working with Covenant House Vancouver, I’m doing just that, only in a different way.

My day was spent on the couch feeling quite ill and in pain but imagining scenarios for many things. Imagination nourishes us spiritually while creating dreams that feed our soul. Forget the fears and the voices from the past and live from your heart, even if it has to be from the couch. I used to live from ego and now I live from my soul. The pain of the past years has given me this gift.

With gratitude Im taking my life back.

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