I'm Ready

As I arrived home on a beautiful spring Saturday, on a much-adored Canadian long weekend, I decided to immerse myself in the totality of my alone-ness and have a bath. I poured my self-indulgent red wine, lit the candles, ran the water until it steamed, poured in the bath salts with lavender and skipped my usual step of adding enough bubble bath to make the tub overflowing with lather and luxury.

I lowered myself into the clear water dotted with the lavender that filled the bathroom with a scent equally intoxicating and relaxing. There was nowhere to hide. And it is in these moments, those of you who know me best, that my mind carries me to a place of curious observation.

In my 50 years I have crafted a consistent and hopefully stylish outward message of who I am. I am enveloped in my style, my mask, my costume that is specific to me and honed after years of succeeding and failing, loving and losing, winning and falling down. We all do that. Each mask is different but we all possess one. It was in the quiet of my bath, in the absence of every defense even against my own loudest-of-all judgment of myself that I saw myself clearly.

I saw my legs, still seeming long from where my eyes see but looking somehow different from the ones that have carried me so far. But they are the legs that guided me away from destruction, by self and others. They are the legs that stood by my children in hospital emergency rooms, as they lay broken and bruised and they did not falter. They are the legs that walked away when the time was right and will carry me forward to whatever awaits me.

I saw my hands, drops of water shimmering as they glided down my fingers, lingering, pondering the great fall. The wrinkles magically moved from the backs of my hands to the tips of my fingers, reminding me that all things, beautiful or not, are temporary. And so are we.

I saw my belly, now round and giving. The one I try so hard to hide and suppress when I put my mask on every day. And I felt thankful that I was blessed to carry and birth three beautiful, perfect people. Without them, my belly, in its wrinkled, rounded form would not be the same; nor would I. How sad would that be?

I sank deep in the warmth of the water. I took a sip of my wine. I took a deep breath of the lavender. And I was happy. Let the next great chapter begin. I’m ready.

If you have enjoyed my ramblings today, even just a little, please send out a thank you to Ernest Hemingway who provided the wonderful advice, “Write drunk. Edit sober.”