Question #16: How do you feel when you wake up?

Before I dive into my answer, let's address the elephant on the calendar. It has been well over a month since my last MomX Quest. I've journaled elsewhere, here and there, but my dedicated practice of showing up to THIS platform and working THIS process has taken a pause. 

Because I up and moved out of that little apartment in San Jose and landed, after some big adventures, in San Diego, where I'm just now opening up my computer again. 

But the bigger reason is that sometimes there is a gap between my thinking, or planned life, and my actual, or lived one. Sometimes daily practices take a month off. And, sometimes things happen so fast that there's no time to sit and process it all. 

And the biggest reason is this: every time we fall "out" and then back "in" to a practice, we strengthen its cutting edge. The same mechanism can be heard in music. Like in jazz. When a song travels away from its base track and then comes back, the base track finds a deeper groove.

One thing I notice is that the way I've felt when I wake up is directly informed by the way I felt when I fell asleep.

The last few nights, I've been falling asleep irritated, overwhelmed, and depleted. I wake up feeling disappointed in myself, and guilty, because I know better than to offer my body less-than-adequate care and nurturing. Leaving San Jose was like crawling out of another cocoon; I'm now experiencing that awkward sticky stage as I detangle my wings, again, while still on the fly. Wrestling with old coping strategies, updating my systems. Scraping out time for regenerative activity.

I've declared that I shall not live in any situation that discourages me from thriving as a mother. And, I have not determined how I shall finance such a life, or where that life will be most likely to occur. I have my vision, however, and I'm flexing faith.

By the Grace of The Big Hand I am also, lately, feeling incredibly GRATEFUL when I wake up because the first thing I see through a big picture window is the ocean stretched out in front of me. A wave of wonder washes through my cells, because it looks so fresh and different and totally new. In this large, sun-lit apartment my father has provided as "transitional housing," I also experience a healing for my inner child, whom my father kicked out into the streets.
 
Every day I face my fear, my doubt, my exhaustion, and all the other feelings that arise when one abandons the beaten path and takes off into the wilderness, especially with small children. I commit to courage.

As a side note, today I dedicated space to stacking the rocks I collected on my last trip to the desert.