Hot air balloon

I have a godmother. She is one of my mom's closest friends and is like a second mother to me. Any twenty-something woman can tell you that the transition relationship you share with your real mom as you move from dependent daughter to independent adult can be  ... rocky. I love my mother very much (she is an amazing mom) but we have our moments, and my godmother is one step back from all of that.

My god-mama is a very good listener, and a very intuitive metaphorical thinker. I was talking to her about my life these days: I'm no longer at the university that became my home the past four years, I'm in a new job with a lot of new co-workers, the environment in my choir has changed drastically for me, my sister is getting married and my brother is making plans to see the world, I'm moving to a new place with new roommates, my best friend moved across the country for grad school, my relationship with my parents is evolving ... basically everything in my life is different and changing. All of the things that anchored me are coming up.

I told her I feel like I'm being tossed in a lifeboat on stormy seas surrounded by fog ... I feel unsteady, un-anchored, and like I have no bearings.

She said this: [paraphrased] "I think it sounds more like a hot air balloon. You know how hot air balloons have anchors tied to the ground to keep them down while they inflate the balloon? That's what all those changes sound like. Each big change isn't a wave hitting your boat or another roll of fog, it's a rope being untied. And one you're untied ... where do you go? Up. And after you float on up, where do you go next?" [To which I responded, "Down?"], and she said, "You go wherever the wind takes you."

Perhaps I don't know my current direction or my destination, but I love the thought of going whichever direction the wind blows. Somehow I will find the grace to not just accept the changes in my life but to embrace them as the birth place of growth and my own evolution into the woman I want to be.

I am so thankful for the people in my life who see me, and see me more clearly than I see myself.