Her Home Is Within

I love watching those television shows where people are making over their homes or where they are hunting for homes or where they're de-cluttering and revealing something new and streamlined, or where they've won the lottery and are able to get their dream home. It's been a long time since I've owned a house or lived in a house, but there's something about those shows that is really fun to watch. They are always about more than they seem to be.

As I think about this, I'm trying to connect with what I resonate with these days. In the late 90s-early 2000s, I loved to see the transformations that are possible for people. So I enjoyed watching the shows where they were de-cluttering and revamping a few rooms or a whole house. These days I like watching the shows where people are brought to choice, refining what they actually want in a home and getting that. They are two very different themes.

Noticing what draws us is a great mirror.

Actually, I'm delighted with what I'm noticing. It's a great relief to understand that I'm in a refinement place in my life rather than feeling like I need more big transformations. 
Understanding that about myself helps me see something about the trajectory of my life for the next few years.  

Do I refine what I have and stay where I am, or do I choose something different and move? There is actually a great deal of freedom in being in this place.

I remember when I first got divorced, my brother told me that I would feel liberated.  For so many years, I struggled even to understand how that could be possible, what that might look like. I felt anything but liberated. I felt like a slave to my heart and a slave to my habits. 

The truth is that we have to live into our changes.

It's important to understand that all this is not simply about where we live. It's also about where we live. It's not just about the location of our home, but about the home on every level that we create in our lives -- where do we come home to? Where do we "come home" to? 

Awhile ago I saw something that drove it home for me. A photo of a woman sitting on a kayak on a lake, holding a cup of tea and looking off into the wide-open sky. Her home is within. 

That's the liberation that I'm feeling these days.

Days of Accidental Beauty: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that invites discovery.