Re-assembling My Soul

Looking back on your life can be a surreal exercise. I believe that even though we retain the same name and biography, we are not the same person from day to day, let alone decade to decade.

The ‘me’ of 20 years ago is not the same ‘me’ of today. Biologically, not one cell in my body is the same; they’ve all been replaced many times over. My day to day and minute to minute experiences have altered my outlook, behavior and reactions. My friends and co-workers and geography have changed. The things that interest me or take up my time are radically different and so how are we the same person throughout our lifetime?

My husband and I argue about this all the time. He looks at life as more of a long progression or a movie, whereas I see it as a bunch of snapshots or more of a photo album. When I look back, I see it as chunks of time that I often no longer relate to. Even if that chunk was in the recent past.

I’ve been struggling with our move from Colorado to Michigan over the past year and a half. I was drawn back to my home state for reasons that I could not explain at the time. Something compelled me to move back to a state  I hadn’t lived in for over 30 years. I didn’t question it, I just did it.

All was well for the most part, until a few devastating things happened, including the death of my dog and then, the sudden death of my 93 year-old father. Those two incidents made the already difficult transition of moving across the country, much more challenging. I longed for our life in Colorado, where Chili was still alive and my sweet daddy was a phone call away. I found myself pulling that ‘photo album’ off my mind’s shelf all of the time.

It didn’t help that my job was still in Colorado, so I was constantly reminded of what I was missing. I spoke to Denver every day on the radio and flew back for work fairly frequently. It was hard straddling two lives, while I was grieving so much. That’s one of the reasons I chose not to renew my contract when it expired last year. I had to live in one place and accept that my life was now on a beautiful 10-acre farm in northern Michigan.

So, I talked my husband into a ski trip to our former neighborhood. As we drove up Berthoud Pass into Fraser, Colorado, it felt as if I had never left. My exact quote was: “I feel like the last year and a half has been a dream and now I’m waking up to reality”. That’s how much I loved that segment of my life.

I’ve kept in contact with the folks who bought our house and we were able to pop in and spend some time visiting with them and my beloved house. She has offered to let us stay there when we visit, but I just wasn’t sure that I could handle that. Too hard. But, visiting with her and ‘my’ house was the most important part of the trip. That house is loved and cared for and I felt a huge wave of peace as we left.  All is as it should be.

We skied in beautiful conditions; there is no place on earth that makes me happier than a ski mountain and so this trip was therapeutic in ways that I never imagined. We snowshoed through the beautiful meadow behind our former home and I was able to soak in the images and energy of the mountains that I love. My happy place. The place where I left part of my soul.

So, that leads me to my next theory. All of those ‘photo albums’ that I mentioned earlier contain bits of our soul. We leave pieces of it as we travel our path and I guess our goal is to somehow call them all back at some point; to reassemble our souls as best we can by letting go of regrets and anger and bitterness. By being grateful for the people, places and experiences that have either chipped at our soul or filled it. We are a constant work in progress and we morph and grow and shrink and evolve, depending on the state of our soul.

I am so grateful for my time in Colorado because I know that for me, it’s a magical place, even though it took leaving to make me fully aware of how much I love it. I’m grateful that I can come back and visit and feel its familiarity. I also know that there were some very difficult times while I lived there and I must honor those challenges as well. It wasn’t perfect; no place or time in our lives is.

But, my soul is fuller after this trip. That part of my life is past and I’ve accepted it and embraced it. So, my message to you is to find your happy places and go there. Often. Whether in your mind’s eye or physically. You’ll find little pieces of your soul there.  Call them all back; it’s what makes us whole again.