Happy one year of "retirement" anniversary, and with that has come a year of reflection, reevaluation, remembering, and a butt-load of other "re's" that have truly helped me heal and move forward.
First and foremost - I am not retired! I did retire from Intermountain Health as a healthcare chaplain, and yet I'm working about 3 days a week with my counseling practice, which I love. This was my intention all along; however, I think when many of us hear "retirement" we think of no longer bringing in an income, no longer working. I can't imagine not having my practice - some way to bring in income, of course, moreso as a way to continue to reach outside of myself, help others, and interact with others. My Pastoral Counselor certification has served me well in this adventure. I love what I do. Wren House is going strong, something of my own.
And I've spent this past year healing - not necessarily from strictly work stress, but from thirty+ years of "go, be, do" seldom making time to reflect. Always moving forward, never looking back, and now, suddenly having the time to do so. I stopped with my 50 hour a week push, and all of my past came slamming into me. I have chosen to turn around, look at so much of this unaddressed trauma, change, "mission, vision, purpose, value," of my lives and acknowledge them.
What does this mean? From getting married at 2 weeks 19, to rearing children, to living in Alabama, moving back to Utah, getting my higher education - and the huge commitment that was, reflecting on loss, transition, divorce, remarriage, careers, deaths, family - parents and parenting, siblings, friends, community, all the tangible things. Along with the intangible - identity, voice, spirituality, beliefs, perspectives, perceptions, value, intention, talent, love, vulnerability, compassion, regrets, questions. Spending time being, rather than doing, and doing so intentionally, has been my focus - taking these slow, resolving my weaknesses and my strengths, inhaling and embracing all of me, and deciding how to proceed. Reaching out to that tangled past and reaching in to the places and spaces it will call home.
When I retired I made a decision that I would not take on anything new, or do anything radical, for this first year (something I highly recommend anyone who has had a loss, of any sort, do). I haven't needed anything new on my plate until I've resolved what has been unresolved. Or better yet - learning to love my shadows while also learning to love my light.
(I just shared with my sister - processing, and then putting that into words, is exhausting. Being is so much more work than doing. And yet I'm finding great comfort in sitting with. I am grateful for the
processing time, and for the writing process.)
And while I could write a post about each of these paragraphs, each of these items, it is this poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, that hit me hard and speaks to this past year's work, truly, my focus of these past 12 months; to love the exiled parts of me, and in doing so, to love me.
Loving Our Exiled Parts
I’m sorry. I thought banishing you
was the way to become better,
more perfect, more good, more free.
The irony: I thought if I cut you off
and cast you out, if I built the walls
high enough, then the parts left would be
more whole. As if the sweet orange
doesn’t need the toughened rind,
the bitter seed. As if the forest
doesn’t need the blue fury of fire.
It didn’t work, did it, the exile?
You were always here, jangling
the hinges, banging at the door,
whispering through the cracks.
Left to myself, I wouldn’t have known
to take down the walls,
nor would I have had the strength to do so.
That act was grace disguised as disaster.
But now that the walls are rubble,
it is also grace that teaches me to want
to embrace you, grace that guides me
to be gentle, even with the part of me
that would still try to exile any other part.
It is grace that invites me
to name all parts beloved.
How honest it all is. How human.
I promise to keep learning how
to know you as my own, to practice
opening to what at first feels unwanted,
meet it with understanding,
trust all belongs, welcome you home.
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