Spirit Me

Do other people have involuntary daydreams about life-and-death scenarios?

I can be walking down the street, and this will go through my mind: What if someone runs up and tries to mug me at gunpoint while I've got Coralie strapped to me? How will I fight him without hurting her? If we fall to the ground, I'll need to fall like this...

Or if that dog comes at me teeth first, here's my plan: first I'll kick and yell, then I'll grab that person's trash can...

Or I'll be in Target, and I'll start thinking: What if someone steals my cart with her in it? Do I scream and risk them doing something crazy? Yes, I think I must. Scream, then take them down.

My level of anxiety about these things is pretty minimal, so I don't get too worried about myself. I think it's probably all just my fierce desire to hold on to what I've got right now.

I'm feeling very sentimental these days. I see a large handful of aging clients in my practice, and a recurrent theme keeps coming up: rather than big, shattering tragedies, they are saddest about their lives slowly declining and realizing they never lived what they hoped and dreamed. They're lonely and disappointed, in life and in themselves. It gets me every time.

I tend to believe we choose to become physical form for a reason. Right now, I have this marvelous sense that I'm pretty much living what I've hoped to live. I've got staggeringly wonderful family and friends, a career that challenges and inspires me, and a beautiful daughter. I'm healthy. I'm stable. I came out of the tortured confusion of my (longggg) adolescence and now I'm really enjoying my life. (Just tired. Oh. I'm. So. Tired.)

I know these things are temporary. I know when life is going well, just wait. And when it's not going well, just wait. So I'm clinging fiercely to this life I get to have right now. I feel like I'm really in it more than usual. And then part of my spirit is watching it from afar, grateful. Spirit Me is telling Body Me to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Body Me says, I know, don't worry I know. Can I just have a nap?

Maybe it's Christmas that pushed me over the edge. As a child, Christmas was at my grandparents' home, with aunts and uncles and cousins and food and conking out on the couch. Then, my grandparents passed way, and the family dispersed. There was a lull, and a readjustment with some sadness. Now, I feel like Christmas is coming to life again. The kids are young, the family is new and vibrant.    

My work, and some of my own experiences, keep me in touch with how lucky I am. I encounter lots of people living on the edge of instability, too aware of the monsters lurking on the other side of all the safety and support we're trying to build around them. I used to feel that way too, back when I had panic attacks, when too much postmodern education took the rug out from under me, when my relationships were struggling...when I was wandering and didn't trust myself. Those experiences served to make me even more grateful now. I feel like I went through one of those black tube waterslides, where I couldn't see anything and didn't know how long I would be falling. Then I came out the other side, and now I'm splashing happily in the sunlit shallow waters again. Coralie means "Girl from the Sea." Spirit Coralie looks out at me from her radiant blue eyes, and says, "I am so ready to be here. I've got my reasons."