Gypsy Heart

I drove around town this morning taking care of some errands and treating myself to a little Starbuck's mocha (my once a week divine indulgence!).  In the last fourteen years, I've lived in so many places and this morning as luck would have it, I passed by just about every place we have lived during that time period.  Huntington Beach is a big city for a little city.  It covers a lot of square footage.  I drove by the place I lived when my third child was just born.  Oh the memories that struck me then.  It was such a difficult time of so much solitude and deep soul searching and then right across the street, we lived there too right before my youngest child was born...again more memories washed over me.  Times challenging to live through but lessons so rich I wouldn't have traded them for anything in the world.  I unintentionally drove past a few more places and again, more memories flooded my consciousness, some good and some not so much but I consoled myself realizing that with every tear shed was a beautiful life lesson learned.

Growing pains in the highest regard it seems these past many years.  I feel like a gypsy sometimes always having to pick up and move for one good reason or another and with four kids, traveling lightly is absolutely impossible.  Maybe I'm awestruck at the wonder of starting over...embracing change?  Nah, that's not it.  I definitely am not afraid to start over.  I've done it so many times that it seems routine.  But, this gypsy heart of mine finds a new longing.  One that has me wanting to stop all the commotion of motion and settle down and put down roots for a while.  You learn a lot while you are in motion and I have full recall of every step of every journey I have ever taken.  But, I would really like to stand still for a while and just observe the world moving around me.  The merry-go-round of life will always spin and sing, rising and falling while continually turning but I think I'd like to stop for a while.  I've never known this kind of feeling before.  Can a gypsy heart really hold a desire to stop roaming?

Maybe it's age, wisdom and maturity that is not so quick to pick up and go any more.  As I look back, I think in some ways I've always been in search of home never realizing that this feeling of "home" is not some place you go or some place you live.  It's some place you are.  This heart of mine now wishes only to roam within the beautiful confines of love and light, following the sun, rainbows and big white puffy clouds crawling across the cerulean blue skies from inside my consciousness.  I don't think I would mind standing still but how will I learn to?  I'm not sure if that's even meant for me and I'll take what I'm given in this life and I'll learn to love every minute of it.  In all of my life, in nearly 45 years on this Earth, I have moved 22 times.  Always some place new, always for some very good reason and now I wish to stop.  That's so funny to me and I'm most certain my closest friends would giggle at my thoughts just now.  Oh right, Jaie stay put in one place?  What is it, April Fools?  That's okay.  I can entertain my thoughts and dreams as I will and smile at my own silliness expressed in this life time and time again. 

This gypsy heart may not even quiver any more at the thought of picking up and leaving again, chasing down another dream or roaming new horizons to build even more new dreams.  But there is one thing it has given me...a gift so precious...the ability to learn to feel at home no matter where I am.  After so long now I find this is of great importance.  Learning to live inside of your skin, feeling whole and a love that defies logic and reason beaming out strongly from the inside and so beautifully returned from the outside world as well...well, I'll just say that I am one very happy soul.  Come what may, life lessons will abound but I will always know that I am home.