Yesterday, walking through Rittenhouse I felt alive for the first time in a good while. Maybe it was the great meeting I had with the Lemons layered with the good long weekend of time with the girls, some load lifting news for a friend or quite possibly Adam Levine’s tattoos live in person. I’m not much into him on The Voice personally, but the girls so adore him and it was a delight to see him perform, but mostly to witness their ever growing love of live music. (thanks to our magic making friend who gets an extra special Santa hat for the season)

Music has been such a soul saver for me – all of my days, especially now. A trait Dean and I have passed onto the girls – good news bad news who knows?! Sure they love pop music, but they have a deeper listening for the good stuff, and it thrills me to no end they can identify a good mix vs a bad one, and especially lately that they can appreciate the very cool things we get to do – music included – simply because we’re kind people, who are friends with kind people, who know some kind people, that like to meet new kind people.

It’s a club, “the keepers” I call them. I know a kind heart the minute I meet them. I can see it in their eyes, the way the sparkle when they smile, the tiny wrinkles at the corners that make you want to notice them – a dead giveaway of a soul centered person. Those people. The ones you want in your life forever – in some fashion, the very ones that just by existing – somehow remind you to smile.

The last several days reminded me of who I am, what I love and who I want to be for my girls. It reminded me I love adventures, and road trips and dinners at the bar instead of a table – because you never know who you’ll end up sitting next to. It reminded me that I have the whole world at my fingertips, and a fresh new canvas to re-create the life we want to live – which even still does not quite seem like a consolation, nonetheless. I know that light is there – I can see it every once in a while, conceptualize it for sure, it’s the really getting it that can be tough. At least some days – lately.

Sometimes it’s the old familiar that brings me back to life, sometimes the music, the tiny lines by your eyes, the fresh taste of a clementine, a call from an old friend, a fresh new pack of gum. I’m kinda simple, really I am. Tonight the record player gently fills the empty, eases the unknown and in a strange way takes away time. Which seems to be a good solution to standing in the empty – erasing time. Cheating – I know.

Creating space is the easy part. Standing in it – the hardest part. I’ve never been good at down time, clearly, and the hard work is just that. Staying.

I’ve spent the last several months – actually years – going. From the minute Dean was diagnosed. Fit it all in, squeeze the everything out of life, experience a lifetime in five years, love up the girls, travel, treatment, music, friends, adventure after adventure after adventure and its all been amazing – well done and so right. I wish I could live that way forever actually – everyday a Saturday. But alas – the universe has stopped me from spinning, it’s a good thing I think. It’s brought me to take some time off from work – and just focus on being. With the kids – with myself, with my people, with my errands, with my chores. It’s allowed me time to think, and write and visit with some friends. This week, it’s my practice, uneasy as it is – so necessary. To take things as they come, to complete a few projects, to get through some piles and just be.

What would you do with more space, more time, a clean slate, a blank page? Would you rewrite your future? Your past? Reallocate your time? Move away – energetically – from certain people? Closer to others? Could you slow down, take a breath, stand your ground, have a rest? Have you ever? Really truly?

Step away from the grind – and just dream.

Feeling blessed and supported in this crazy readjustment, that while I thought I was quite through it, appears to only have just begun.