The Golden Thread

Have you arrived at the point in your life yet where you find yourself asking "Who am I?" and "Where did I go?" I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m Mommy, I’m wife, I’m Lawyer, I’m customer, I’m service provider, but I’m not me. Or, at least, I haven’t seen her in a long time. Where did I go – Julie. Where did Julie go? The lawyer? The wife? the Mommy? Those are just roles.

Once upon a time there was a part of me that watched the clouds go by and smiled when she felt the kiss of sun on her cheek or a wisp of wind laughing through her hair. A girl who actually noticed when a butterfly landed on a flower, or that the scent of lilacs just passed by on a breeze. A mind that used to lay gazing up at the stars in the sky at night with friends and had talks about strange things like druids and Plato, and contemplated why we're here, and what connects us all.

Who actually notices these things? Who actually thinks about these things? I did -- the inner me. The inner me is the one whose more than just the sum of the roles she plays every day, the one who’s not just a woman doing/going through the motions of life by accomplishing task “A” for the hubby, task “B” for the client, and task “C” for the family dog. The one who is truly present in the moment, and that moment is not just the act of doing for anyone else. . . .

There has to be – in every moment – a sense of self that is maintained. And THAT is what I want to write about: about how to maintain that self-continuity, that ….. “golden thread” of me, that individual strand that runs through the tapestry of my moments on this earth. Without such continuity, I might as well be a machine, because whoever Julie is – that unique, separate consciousness God put on this earth (as each of us is a separate and unique consciousness) – isn’t here.

I have learned over the years the art of weaving this "golden thread," this core continuum of “Julie” behind the scenes as I go through my days eating, breathing, walking, doing. The art of being while doing nothing AND the art of STILL being while engaged in some other activity. Yes, I am convinced there is a way to have Julie as a subtext to every moment, although I’m not that good at that part yet. I’m still working on weaving it into the tapestry of the moments that fill every day.

Next blog?  More on finding that thread, and how to weave it.  Take care, and thanks for listening.  -Jules