Going Home

After 60 days of being somewhere else, either a hotel room, a hospital room, a friend’s or relative’s house, I’m headed home.

For a little more than a week now, I’ve said “I’m heading home on Saturday.”  Or “I’m going home on the 19th.”  It wasn’t until I tried to write out the date, 9/19/09 that I realized how perfect it was that this was my going home date.

I was married on 1/19/91.  Now, another day of 9s sends me home again to be with Mike and the animals in our own house.   9/19/09 is also the beginning of Rosh Hashanah.  The new year.   A sign from the universe that I am ready; that this is the right decision.  At least it would be if I believed in signs and omens.  Okay, I do believe in them just a little; just enough to use them to support my decision when people ask me if I’m sure I’m ready.

Going home is the start of the next part of this adventure I’m having with cancer and illness and recovery.   I have had only one mission, only one responsibility these past 60 days:  get better.  I have created routines and patterns that support that mission.  Exercise, PT homework, yoga, water, water, water, good food, the company of good friends and lots of time with Mike and Rigley.  Lots of time with those that love and support me.   This is not the pattern I had before I knew I was sick.

I like this pattern better.  I like these habits more.

I am trepid about re-entering the world.  I still need the recovery habits:  I need to nap.  I need my friends and family.  I need sleep, yoga, exercise, PT homework.  But now I need to add the work of work and the work of being in my own house with my own responsibilities. God how I will miss someone else making my bed!

I do not want to fall back into the quagmire of  habits from my pre-surgery life.  I am not interested in 18 hour work days and never having time for my family and friends, let alone for taking care of myself.    I want to throw out all the stuff in my closets and drawers and cupboards that no longer serve me.  I want to strip down my possessions and my life to only those things that matter, that serve me now.

In my yoga practice, one of the intentions I say during breath work is, on exhale to say in my mind, I release what I don’t need.  On the inhale I say in my mind, I breath in what I need.   This intentional meditation is helping me see how much of what I do is no longer needed;  the old things, the old thinking, the old patterns to support my old life.  I don’t need them any more.  I am not that person any more.  In some cases I haven’t been that person for decades.  Yet the old thinking, the old physical stuff, is still part of my life.   I am still dragging it around, making room for it in my closets, my basement, my mind and my relationships.

So today I say to myself:  Shona Tova and wish my self a good and sweet year.