Excerpt from "Last Times"

Grace will be five on Monday and somehow, the small steps between my current 4-year-old preschooler and my soon-to-be 5-year-old kindergartener seem like a vast chasm between two different lands – the land of infinite cuddles, kisses, hugs, I love you’s and the delicious peal of mirth that is the sacred bookmark of this precious age… and the land of seemingly instant independence where this sweet child of mine is suddenly making her bed, cleaning her room, taking her plates to the sink without being asked and saying things like “I can do it by myself.” When Grace was about three and a half, an old back injury of mine flared up and carrying my preschooler became a painful and not particularly intelligent endeavor. At the same time, she suddenly wanted to be picked up ALL THE TIME. “My legs are tired” became the phrase du jour – from the kitchen to her bedroom, from the driveway to the front door, from the car park to the shop 30 feet away – we seemed to suddenly stumble upon an invisible leg zapper that kicked in after about 10 steps and which reduced my perfectly mobile and usually docile three year old to an unyielding and immoveable force of gravity. “Please carry me,” she would plead. “Grace, darling – I would love to carry you but you are too big for me to carry now because my back is hurt” I would respond. “Pleeeeeeeeeeze???” “Grace, you are too big to carry and it hurts my back too much” “But my legs hurt” “Grace, I just told you – you are too big to carry and it hurts my back.” “But pleeeeeeze???” “Grace – please stop asking me to carry you. The answer is no.” And so on and so forth, ad infinitum, in the eternal looping dialogue that only a child can sustain. We seemed to have this conversation at least four times a day. Sometimes I would give in but most of the time I maintained my position and Grace would ultimately – usually after a pint-sized royal meltdown – stomp up beside me with her little arms folded angrily across her chest and her little face all bunched up in miniature fury accompanied by a sparse, smattering spillover of tears. This scene played out over and over again for months – it felt like forever – until one day I realized she had stopped asking and I didn’t even know when that had happened. Grace has just returned from the UK, where she spent two weeks visiting her grandparents with her father. For the two weeks she was gone, I roamed back and forth across my house like a restless caged lioness, waiting for my cub to come home. I kept looking in her bedroom, as if she might suddenly materialize from space – willing her to be beamed up from Buckingham Palace – and sleeping with her plush bunny rabbit hugged tightly to my chest through the night to have something of her close to me. I missed her with such fierce longing and intensity that sometimes I just wanted to kneel down and wail. Finally, after two endless weeks, my little girl came home and when I saw her, I ran to her and swooped her up in my arms whooping with delight. I just wanted to smother her with love and kisses and never let her go again. She giggled and laughed and then abruptly, in a calm and quiet voice said, “Mummy, please put me down”. I looked at her with surprise but did as she asked and reluctantly put her down and then knelt beside her with my hands on her arms and asked, “Grace, what’s the matter sweetheart?” She took a step in towards me and then tenderly stroked my cheek as she fixed her big wide blue eyes on mine with a look of total and unadulterated love and she said, “Mummy, I’m too big for you to carry and it hurts your back too much”. Had I had so much as even contemplated what the pain of that gentle and compassionate rebuff might feel like in all those times she had pleaded with me to carry her, I would have gladly suffered a broken back to hold my daughter in my arms every time she asked, for as long as she wanted. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes as she continued to stroke my cheek and I hugged her close to me so she wouldn’t see that a part of me had just ruptured. Later that day, we went to the shops and I must confess that I deliberately parked in the farthest possible space and then proceeded to take her from one end of the mall to the other, running errands (that truly did need to be done). Eventually she said, “Mummy, can we sit down for a little while? My legs are a tiny bit tired.” “Gracie,” I responded “Would it be okay if I carried you? My back’s better now and no matter how big you get, you will always be my little girl.” She looked at me with those amazing blue eyes of hers and furrowed her little brow in concern and asked, “Are you sure, Mummy?” “I am absolutely positive, my darling,” with barely contained delight. “Ok,” she said tentatively, “but just for a little bit and then I’ll walk again so you don’t have to carry me.” “Ok,” I said, hoping she would let me carry her all the way back to the car. I picked her up and cradled her to my chest – breathing in her wonder and her innocence and her trust, inhaling her child-like scent and brushing her cheek against mine, savoring the moment and finally appreciating the true sacredness of this fleeting time. We’re having Grace’s 5th birthday party tomorrow and I’ve decided that I might park the car a few blocks away from the venue. In fact, I think I’m going to make a habit of parking the car just that bit further away, just in case Grace’s legs get tired and she might agree to let me carry her.

The real deal

I very recently ended a relationship with a man I truly deeply love. I did not want to end it and I am still raw with pain and feverish with the attendant grief, sorrow, despair, anger, remorse and disappointment that comes with a break up. However, this break-up was a major paradigm shift for me. It is the first time in my life I have ever been in the driver's seat at the end of a relationship and the shift is about me standing for and backing ME rather than being the victim, a role I only now realise I have chosen and played to a tee for so much of my life.

In every other significant and intimate relationship in my life, I have hung on until the bitter end, until the other person had no choice but to let go, because the fear of not having anyone else come into the space, of being the bad guy, of being alone, unloveable and unworthy was greater than my ability to love and trust myself. I looked outside for validation and I sought external acknowledgment and references to figure out who I was and how I was showing up in the world. To me, any attention at all was an affirmation that I was 'wanted' even if the attention was negative, abusive or depleting. And although its too soon to tell whether my stepping up and breaking up with a man I deeply love and care about does truly signify a radical transformation in how I respond to my inner and outer world, even this small baby step has indeed been a giant leap in my own evolution of consciousness. From now on, I vow to recognise when a relationship is not serving me at my highest self and for the greatest good, and I vow to step away from the toxicity I have tangoed with all my life.

I receive various 'energy' reports from about half a dozen different sources from around the world and though I have struggled with the ultimate debate of "man's search for meaning in a meaningless world", the specific consistencies of these reports is inescapable and even my "non-spiritual" friends echo the belief that there is a lot going on at the moment and massive change is underway. What all of these energy reports say is that this is a time of tremendous planetary action, momentum and upheaval. For those of us mortal beings having a human experience, we have a choice to cross over into a new expanded way of being or remain in the familiarity and comfort of the old small sandbox. For those of us who are ready to challenge the status quo and set a new standard, we must act with nothing less than rigorous self-honesty and we must therefore let go of anything that is not in alignment with who we are at the highest level - people, places, things, behaviours, patterns and stories that keep us stuck on the treadmill or mired in quicksand. Ultimately, this is about walking your talk and being consistent in thought, word and deed. It is the first of The Four Agreements - "Be impeccable with your word".

A few hours ago, I resigned my role as "godmother" for the daughter of someone who used to be a great friend but is now someone I have barely seen or spoken to since the child was born. Perhaps the "godmother" tag is really nothing more than a gratuitous label and maybe it doesn't make any difference to her or to anyone if I fulfil my 'godmotherly duties' or not but I don't want to play that game anymore. Its the "lets catch up soon" mantra - a throw-out line that is insincere, inauthentic and diminishing. If I'm going to be someone's godmother, I want to honour that role as sacred and inviolable and give that child the time, the love and the commitment I believe a god-child deserves. I don't feel I can do that here and me now walking my talk and backing myself at the highest level mandates a spring-clean from the inside-out. Its time to call "bullshit" on my own inauthenticity and risk being called 'a bitch' in the process, risk being the bad guy for once in order to be my own good guy from here on out.

I was with a counsellor a few weeks ago to help navigate my feelings around this dying relationship. At the end of our session I said "no matter what happens, I am done being single. That chapter in my life is finished and I am in partnership now for the duration. So, even if this particular relationship ends, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone even more amazing will come into the space very quickly". He looked at me for a few moments and then he smiled. "Yes that is correct," he said. "I can feel it and see it too. You will never be single again because you are finally coming together with yourself." Whoa! That is not what I had meant at all but that simple statement contained a profound realisation. In backing ourself, in standing for and speaking our own truth, we merge the different parts of ourself that have felt unheard, rejected, abandoned (and we realise that as adults, no one else ever really abandons us - we only abandon ourselves) and we become whole and when that happens, we truly understand that what we seek on the outside is absolutely within us at all times.

I was at a retreat up in Byron Bay a few weeks ago and a very wise and beloved friend observed that when we fall in love with someone, we believe we have found what we are looking for but really, that person is only a mirror to us. When we fall in love, we stop seeking and when we stop seeking, we are able to feel, see, know and experience ourselves at the highest level - the real and authentic us - that we project onto the person we are in relationship with. It is an illusion to believe it is the other person that brings us joy, contentment, love and happiness. When the relationship ends, we start seeking again and it is the act of seeking - not the lack of a significant and intimate other - that brings loneliness, heart-ache and suffering.

Right now, I still feel a great aching loss and a hole in my heart (and if I am brutally honest - indescribable frustration that he didn't step up and fight for us) but at the same time, I can also feel the sense of a deep peace and fulfilment for doing the right thing by me at the highest level. The duality here is that I'm not sure how I feel about being so merged and whole within myself that I no longer desire another but I don't think I will ever go back to accepting anything less than 'the real deal'.