March 22nd, 2010:   Peace with Family

On the cruise I heard many amazing funny/sad family stories.  Stories that were clearly that now…just stories.  Stories that had spawned the creation of wonderful human beings and for that reason were honored with respect as well as laughter.  When, as an adult, you can take a situation born of great pain and end up entertaining a loving group of friends in hysterical laughter, you have grown up.

I have spent the past two days with my big brother.  We didn’t get close until well after we had both left home and found our individual paths.  Now that our mother has made her transition he and I have become closer and I love visiting him and my sister, his wife.  She’s the only sister I will ever have.

I came here fresh from the cruise ship and a day of travel.  My heart full of tears and of fearing a trip home to the same state of emergence of my next life that I left.

For so long I had looked forward to the cruise but not to the what –comes- next after the cruise.  I had left for the cruise in the middle of an anniversary of what brought me to my knees one year ago.

But I’ve had a chance to know who I am with my family of roots before I return and it has gently allowed me to climb back into my skin after orbiting in the stratosphere with 700 other Abrahamsters.  That’s a very intense vibration.  And even in the loving of it there was an excited stress that rattled my cage which has known more sturdy times.

Now I’ve had two days to weep, write, share, prepare.  Prepare to return to my life, return with everything I’ve gotten since I left and that’s a lot!

With family I’ve been fed, treated to movies, been brought breakfast in bed, listened to, laughed with, shared with, driven around, hugged, and loved.

And…get this…we were at the Central Market, one of my favorite places here and Big Brother bought me this Whoopie Pie.  It’s a cake sandwich with the outsides being red velvet cake like bread and the inside is vanilla butter cream!   And it’s shaped like a flower.  Love and a Whoopie Pie.  It doesn’t get better.

I’m showered, packed and ready to return tomorrow to Milwaukee.  I’m not sure what will await me…more adventures and more shall be revealed.   I am sure that I am better off for this side trip to family.  I realize that not everyone can say that.

With Love, Connie