Reciprocity

A few weeks ago I felt like I’d stepped onto a new path … no idea where it was leading but fear hadn’t arrived yet - trust had. 

I’ve been finding breadcrumbs - evidence since then … someone told me that grief strips away the noise … I think that’s true … It makes seeing things easier because the excess falls away. 

Reciprocity keeps coming up … as evidence, in conversation … not in a transactional sense but in how energy moves through us … in the relationship we have with ourselves, our self-care, our relationships with others, our relationship with money, our career and its trajectory. The circle - energy in, energy out - while not always equally distributed, should balance out over the course of time, the course of our actions … This is true in all areas of our life, not just one or two. 

Yesterday was my aunt's graveside service … The last few weeks have been building towards this. When I ran into pick up the flowers I discovered my friends had arranged for flowers to be added to my order.  In rooms I wasn’t in they asked how they could support me, how they could remind me they were there, watching my back … It was a small thing, but it had weight. It was stacked on every other small thing that had come before. 

They are my pack. 

They exemplify what I want my relationships to be. They are one of my guideposts, a part of my foundation. Sometimes they show up for me, sometimes I’m there for them and sometimes we are just there - equally in, equally available. I don’t have to keep score, I trust them to be there when I need them and I hope they have that same trust in me. 

Today I’m tired … I was up early taking my parents to the airport. I came home and laid down for an hour, then ran some errands, laid down again, rinsed and repeated. There were tears in the mix today as well. Some were grief, some exhaustion, some by body letting go of all the things it’s letting go of. 

My aunt, her sisters … they love tarot reading, flour reading, tea leaves, the ring … Every week I ask what I need to know for the week ahead … My aunts did this with cards, books, scripture … They trusted the answer would give them insight, open them up to possibility, to validate they were on the right path, or simply answer if they needed to take a coat. The tower card jumped out today, which made me laugh. I think she would have appreciated the timeliness of that card. For those that don’t know, the gist of the tower card is that things are falling away to make room for a fresh start. It felt like validation … I’m on the right path, the girl who has built a career on assessing risks, understanding threats and navigating outcomes is remembering what it felt like to jump … The freedom that existed in the fall, the possibility, the joy. That’s what the path feels like, being suspended in air, like I could fly and it lives in the not knowing, it lives in the trusting … myself, my instincts, my North Star. 

This is where and how reciprocity is showing up in me … Not just in my relationships, not just what goes external from me or comes externally to me … but the give and take within myself. 

The breadcrumbs were there, in jobs that felt wrong, relationships (professional, personal and the one with myself). I made changes based on a feeling, one that I can finally articulate. 

Reciprocity.

I talk about wanting balance, the extremes I navigate being wrong but not necessarily feeling wrong … I was caught in a loop. My emotions have range - depth - all of them.  That isn’t flawed, it’s how I process, how I experience the world around me. I’m not endorsing wreckless, or dangerous … Emotion isn’t action, it’s an adjective … for me it’s big, but while it’s internal, it’s data. Where and how I choose to express it … that’s where it moves into action. This is true of how I work, approach goals, dreams, relationships … Life. This is where reciprocity feels meaningful … it’s where balance matters … 

These past few weeks I have felt her with me … Pointing out breadcrumbs, leading me to answers I always had but couldn’t find. Not because her death has to mean something but because the noise losing her stripped away helped remind me of the life she lived, the lessons she modelled over a lifetime that were worth learning, that resonate with who I am. 

The part of my heart she took, it aches, misses her, grieves but it knows she left a part of herself with me. 

I’ve been crying as I write this … for all the reasons … She is a part of my pack and I love that I got to be a part of hers … 

Reciprocity has been the theme … in breadcrumbs … evidence … the single word to articulate one of the things I need across all areas of my life … not to give more or less but to ask if there is movement in both directions. 

When I look back, it’s been there, through every heartbreak, every loss, in the moments I lost myself. I can name every face it was reflected in but I couldn’t name it. I knew that it mattered and could feel its absence … it’s why pack is a core element in my life, my thinking, my being … the ones that live there are there because they close the circle.