I Belong To Me

What happens when the anxiety that I’ve lived with all my life is gone?  Gone for good, probably not. But for the past few days, I have not been feeling the constant sense that something is wrong, that trouble is looming.

There’s a spaciousness inside of me that isn’t afraid of the quiet.  Always I have hurried from one thing to the next, one step ahead of myself, to ensure that the emptiness doesn’t come crashing down.

But I’m finding that lonely, empty feeling I’ve been running from, pushing away my whole life, isn’t something to be feared anymore.  Either it has changed or I have.

Now it feels like room to spread out in, space to expand.

And in that space, I asked the question, Who do I belong to?  My parents? my family? my husband? my society? my god?

And the answer came back, I belong to me. 

I get to make the decisions about what I believe is right or wrong, I get to choose what I fear and when to feel joy or contentment.   Always this anchor, this weight had held me down, making me believe that there is another who gets to set the rules.

Just the thought of such freedom, such responsibility would have terrified me in the past. And I’m sure there will be times when it does again.

But not enough to give it away.

I’m experiencing the space and freedom that I’m feeling inside of me when I create the collages I have been making for the past two weeks. They are showing me what it looks like not be anxious.  To allow.

I belong to me, I wrote it again an again inside the shape that is me on the collage.  She has no feet, but like the roots of a tree, her legs disappear into the ground.  While around her, her familiars help the transformation takes place.