French Woman Camping

When you take charge of your life, there is no longer a need to ask permission of other people or society at large.

My life on the other side of taking charge. I’m not French, but feel inspired by the elegant sophistication French women exude. And… they make doing dishes in high heels look effortless.

I love to camp in the great outdoors; however, I want to enjoy it like a French Woman.  My inner tomboy has a tendency to outwardly live more like Annie Oakley, overshadowing my inner Catherine Deneuve.  After heartache hit, I realized healing needed both my rugged and classy reserves to merge as comrades– together, navigating the unchartered territory of a new life.

Allowing all aspects of myself to shine, simultaneously, didn’t occur to me until my therapist said, “If you want to camp in high heels, then go ahead.” My sleeping giant is awake now, pioneering new spirit, trailblazing new highways, and frolicking for more fun.

A Road I’ve Traveled…

I am a woman who has sat in the center of sorrow and untangled myself through tears of transformation. I’ve touched the depths of betrayal, roamed it’s hallow halls, and kept my heart open to ignite new responses from life’s suffering.

I’ve become fearless in grasping new opportunities and rising to the heights of my Souls journey. I have listened, I have labored, I have laughed and I have loved.

I have been naive and washed clean from awareness.

I am a woman who fell into the fire and stepped out salving my wounds with courage. I have danced as a woman of prominence in my husbands arms, and been replaced mid-song, by another woman’s authority. I have let go and stood in the Grace of my own life, loving my essence left behind.

I have faced the tightrope walk between terror and triumph, with no net to catch me. I have honored the new ritual of filling my cup with tea when the thunder of life knocks me awake at night. I sip it’s comfort, reach for the moon, trusting my heart will land somewhere in the stars, come dawns first light.

I have been heavy with despair, unable to see the road clearly ahead. The guidance rumbles in my heart when looking through my daughter’s eyes- “Mommy, shiny pennies always have the best wishes.”

From the humility of failure, battered and bruised, I’ve washed up on the shores of a new life. I have found refuge in writing, solace in sanctuary and power in poise. I have embraced the bigger, bolder, brighter individual that I now know myself to be.

I am here, I am now, I am whole.