Echoes

This week I brought home the footstool I had taken out to be reupholstered. Seeing it back in its space - an extension of the rocker brought me so much joy!

So much so that I started thinking of all the things that make me smile … I went back into the archives and re-read one of my blog posts on the very subject … Doing that - made me smile!

That girl - the one who wrote that - I didn’t give her enough credit … She trusted her instincts far more than I ever understood at the time, she was noticing before I knew what it was … She was leading us to where we are … No roadmap, no promises … Just instinct. 

Re-reading that post took me down a rabbit hole of other posts and I realized they have the same echoes … 

Now I’m taking us down the rabbit hole … I keep seeing these videos on my for me page, two squirrels … The boy gives the girl a tentative kiss, she blushes and then scrunches up her face like she is using all her energy on restraint before squishing his cheeks and kissing him all over his face some twenty odd times.  It makes me laugh … It reminds me of my Georgie Cat, squishing her face and covering her with kisses. She always let me, but always gave me that “I’m annoyed at you” face … My kiddoes are all raising their hands and asking if this is where they queue for their experiences with that. 

It made me think about other things that made me smile … Songs that hit my radar in the moments I need them … Not because they are songs I necessarily know, or love, or the genre I typically listen to but because something in their lyrics or melody is what I need in the moment they find me. They give me permission to cry, to sing at the top of my lungs while dancing in the kitchen or they push me, remind me “I Didn’t Come This Far To Only Come This Far …”

I tend to reminisce at this time of year … Maybe it’s the season - fall … The whole premise is letting go. That’s not always heavy or emotionally taxing, sometimes there is a lightness that comes, a feeling of renewal.  Maybe that’s why I was drawn back to those previous posts, whatever the reason … I realized how much I miss my garden. It’s messiness, it’s colour.  While I miss it, I don’t miss it living in that space - which was an interesting realization. I loved that space while I was there, I have so many memories wrapped up there … people, my Georgie Cat … not all of them could come with me - I miss them … not it, them. Which is also something I already knew about myself - but had maybe forgotten?

I get tied to people - not places, people. They are my tether. Not because they hold me back, quite the opposite. They let me be me … In all my messiness, my quirks … My everything. 

My Georgie Cat - my beastly … Will always be intertwined with those echoes … in reading the post on losing her I was struck with the realization that I was describing the love I want across all my relationships … Without recognizing it. All the descriptors of why she mattered were the words that have formed to verbalize what I’m looking for. 

Reading that post made me cry. I was overcome with all the emotion I felt when I originally wrote it and my heart hurt from missing her … Today, as I write this, I can see her picture - the one that sits on my desk - and I can smile … It’s one of my favourite pictures of her - curled up in the pedestal sink while I was getting dressed and ready for work … 

I love that that memory still makes me smile!

Joy comes from the craziest things … returning something I’ve updated to its home in front of the rocker, a song that hits - exactly right at the exact right time, a memory, a crazy clock in a city across the pond, falling in love with a character in a book and being - temporarily - taken on a journey to unknown lands and times … 

Taking moments to notice … I needed that reminder - from her - about why I made that choice, why I should continue to make that choice.

The footstool … That felt like a nod from the universe, you’re on the right path … Every once in a while it’s ok to pause, look around and feel the life I’m building. 

That might sound corny, or woo woo … But I believe in instinct, that small, seemingly insignificant things can actually have more meaning than they appear too on the surface. I knew when I left my last job that it was time - I had wanted to leave for a while, so why that moment? I just knew … It would be ok, I would be ok.

No one in my life disagreed with my leaving. In truth, if anyone doubted I would be ok, they never told me. Even if they had - I knew, at my core, it would be ok.

Sometimes the evidence exists - just not in ways we are used to, it’s not neat or exact. It’s more art than science as it were. 

My point?

Sometimes it’s nice to reflect, smile at things that make us smile, appreciate the wisdom of our past selves and then continue with living the life we have now. 

I’m still tempted to stop and take pictures of the wild flowers growing amongst the bullrushes, I still love my first sip of coffee, a good lipstick still makes my day just a little better.

Some things don’t need to change … They are allowed to remain things that make me smile.