Unknown

In the Spring of 2007, just weeks before the end of the school year, I quit.

I walked out the doors and I never looked back.

Only in my dreams would the conversations play out.

Only in my dreams would I see the cast of characters.

Only in my dreams for months, would I be apologizing.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

I lost contact with almost everyone that I had been working so closely with.

On that Spring afternoon, I lept.

I jumped.

I wept.

I entered the unknown.

The road less traveled.

I walked away from my title. My career. My students. My life.

No net. No net. No net.

Recently, I was watching the Movie, Life Itself.

It’s full of these moments in time, that forever change us, that we replay in our heads, the pivitol moments where, no matter what, we can never go back.

“You have had many ups and downs in your life. Too many. And you will have more. This is life. And this is what it does. Life brings you to your knees. It brings you lower than you think you can go. But if you stand back up and move forward, if you go just a little farther, you will always find love. I found love in you. And my life, my story, it will continue after I’m gone. Because you are my story. You are your father’s story. Your uncle’s, Rigo, my body fails me, but you are me. So you go now, give me a beautiful life. The most beautiful life ever. Yeah? And if life brings us to our knees, you stand us back up. You get up and go farther, and find us the love. Will you do that?” — Isabel

When I walked out the door of the school, I knew I was never going back.

But I also knew that I would be okay.

Somehow, deep in my soul, I knew that I could be brave.

That I could change my story.

This past year, I have done a lot of work with Ayurveda and Ancestral Healing.

What is Ancestral Healing? It’s going back to your stories, your elders lives, it’s telling their stories, listening to their stories, it’s acknowledging the blood lines, the trauma and the tragedy of being human, it’s bowing down to the mental illness and addictions, the abuse, the suicides, the racism, the ugly secrets buried in dark closets and bringing them to light. BUT, not with shame or blame, only with love and compassion. It’s about seeing the whole human, in that moment in time.

What did their life feel like? Look like?

What struggles did they face?

If we know that our cells carry the stories of our ancestors, then it’s up to us to share them, tell them, breathe into them.

No longer afraid of what we might find, but curious and open to the discoveries that we make.

I am finally in a place to receive the wisdom, to face the questions and to bring forth the qualities of strength and forgiveness.

“I’m not sure whose story I have been telling. I’m not sure if it is mine, or if it’s some character’s I have yet to meet. I’m not sure of anything. All I know is that, at any moment, life will surprise me. It will bring me to my knees, and when it does, I will remind myself, I will remind myself that I am my father. And I am my father’s father. I am my mother. And I am my mother’s mother. And while it may be easy to wallow in the tragedies that shape our lives, and while it’s natural to focus on those unspeakable moments that bring us to our knees, we must remind ourselves that if we get up, if we take the story a little bit farther…

If we go far enough, there’s love.”- Elena