Nowhere to Lay My Head

I'm surrounded by boxes. Today I've started packing my books. Which do I need now and which can be left to gather dust in storage while once again they wait for a shelf to find a home on? I take so little time to read, yet it is one of the things I love doing most. I had two books to read this week while awaiting the start of my journalism program. But news that I have to vacate my home means sitting among them, silencing their words until we meet again. 

As I pack up this lovely house, I feel a deep sadness. Love lived in every room. A room for my grandkids that we affectionately referred to as the Kid Cave. A room to call my office, where fine art photographs I created myself covered the walls; a living area where many early mornings and late evenings were spent mulling over homework or music. A photography studio where many have passed through the doors into a slightly intimidating room filled with lights and umbrellas. Here camera and character met to introduce both subject and viewer to a moment of one's self. A kitchen where itty bits and grown children alike have congregated to share meals, laughter, and spills. A bedroom with one beautiful piece of furniture where for the first time in years I had a bed of my own. It was a symbol of being settled. It meant I had a home.

I came across a box of journals carefully hidden in the bedroom closet. Pages that have recorded my chaotic life over so very many years. And I realize I've felt in transition for most of them. I've not yet had a permanent place to lay my head. I wanted this to be it. 

"Not yet, Child," says my Creator. "We've another adventure." And again, I've nowhere to lay my head. 

The past couple of weeks I have been encountering anger. Things I thought I had reconciled have surfaced. I realized I have allowed myself to bury rather than heal. I've allowed complacency to force me to accept the evils that terrorize my life. I've not LIVED in my life but struggled through it. And that struggle leaves me with nowhere to lay my head! Pages and pages of handwritten words of crying out for a different life than this exhausting one stared me in the face, bound in leather and paper and ink. A trash can. Sadness, anger, devastation, struggle, weariness, BE GONE! I threw them out. I want to write a new chapter.

While again I find myself in transition, my head will lie in temporary places for awhile. But I want to run to and not from. I am watching for the next adventure. Throwing out those journals was like throwing away the pain. I am refusing to live in that place of angst any longer. I will not be kicking and screaming and having a tantrum because my life has had the rug yanked out from under it again. Oh no, I am going to engage in this adventure. Let's go, life. I'm living you now. There's a reason I've had nowhere to lay my head. I want to find out what it is!