Sometimes you have to get away. Soul calls. You’re burning out. Overdrawn. Feeling crisp inside.
Today I knew I had to get away. To the ocean. Even though it was a busy Tuesday. I simply know what happens when you override your signals too long.
This is part of being human. Definitely part of being woman. Even when life is good you have to get away. Clarissa Pinkola Estes talks about this brilliantly in Women Who Run With The Wolves.
But in the going I was trying to do everything I was supposed to do first. Take care of clients. Take care of the garden. Do the dishes. Edit the document. Reply to the texts. Put the word out to the community about the abundance of ripe romas. Respond to the prospective client. Not leave my beloved with the land project unfinished because he does more than his fair share as it is.
In my rush to find a place for the bounty of tomatoes the largest of our tempered glass cooking lids crashed to the cement counter and onto the floor, scattering thousands of tiny crystalline shards into every corner of the kitchen.
This is what happens when we don’t get away. And when we try to keep our going away tidy and tend everything and everyone else first. Things break.
And if you don’t heed the signal, bigger things break. Until what breaks is you. I’ve lived it. So I swept up the glass, canceled my evening call, got my beach bag, and went to the ocean.
I don’t need to tell you what I did there. We each have our own way of coming back to ourselves. It really doesn’t matter what it is, just that we do it.
And while we’re at it, how about we normalize stepping away? Because solitude is a necessity. It doesn’t have to be justified. Your existence does not have to be justified. Neither does your soul and whatever it requires of you. So how about we talk about our stepping away without shame? That way everyone knows they have permission, or even support, to respond to the call of soul.
Meanwhile, I have a new appreciation for the phrase “losing your lid.” Maybe it’s time for me to lose the covers and glass ceilings that contain me; the lids I use to hold myself in. Maybe it’s time to boil wildly. Like the ocean.