Past and Prescence: Lamenting the story.

I used to feel so melancholy during the holidays as a kid. I always felt it was the most reverent time of the year.  Being quiet and reflective of the beliefs that I had grown into.  Being able to wonder and hope but not being able to truly believe.  That was the problem, I just couldn't believe but hoped and wondered if it was all really true.  Could my dreams come true and be fulfilled?  Was there such a thing as abundance and happiness? Even as a young girl I thought only the privileged had those things. Everything they asked for, everything they dreamed of.  Middle class kids just didn't get that validation or bounty. We were to be like everyone else and have those things that were expected of us, being like the others in our class. How could I make my dreams and wishes come true? I knew the limitations of of my family, and of the world.  I never went without, nor did I lack for something to open on Christmas morning.  I had always wanted the riches, magic and abundance that I read of in stories, fairy tales and movies.  I longed for abundant wealth and riches.  I longed for the jewels and crowns of a princess, the lavish furniture fitting a princess or Queen.  I wanted to never want ever again. I wanted to have everything that came into my mind that I imagined. I would have preferred it to be manifested in a subconscious, unconscious way.  The easy way.
In the elementary school years, I thought I was different than the other kids, thinking too much and feeling too much.  Wanting to belong and have friends and people to trust. Wanting a fairytale life that made for happy "Mayberry RFD" moments.  Being intuitive in those years without knowing that I was, was awkward at best. Usually embarrassed and feeling silly.  I was "slow" to learn to trust and easily beguiled. Often gullible to my friends and family's beliefs and opinions.  Even my siblings would taunt me for my gullibility.  Silly how we remember those little things.  I lacked my own belief in my intuition and lacked the trust in myself. I put that belief and trust in people that weren't always the safest or those who didn't have my best interest at heart.
In the middle school and high school years, I found myself wanting the abundance again. I was so reflective of the things I didn't have and painfully reminded of being deeply different. The few things I did know of was how to charm, use my height to my advantage, and to take the banter and wit to the highest level of adolescent whim.  Still I didn't believe in my own intuition and trust my own knowing.  I had trusted the validation of peers and loves who again didn't know me deeply or didn't have my best interest and evolution at heart.
As a young adult, I followed what others told me to do. I made choices that someday would deeply regret and be forever unforgiving to myself.  Still dutiful and trying to uphold an image of what I was supposed to be. I didn't know what that image was until I realized it wasn't really me and wasn't who I felt like on the inside.  I realized that epiphany one moment when I saw a picture of myself and someone made the comment that I look sad and frumpy, overly matronly and Mormon-like! I was all that and those things on the outside. Sad, frumpy, trying very hard to be the super-mom and deeply believing in the Mormon dogma trying so hard to be accepted, loved and respected. Shaking my head now, reliving that shock as I saw myself defined again by another's perception and my own.
Fast forward to this December and realizing that the past five years has been truly painful. Not filled with the abundance of my childhood dreams, but richly filled with the abundance of something far more valuable that jewels, glamour or personal financial success. Filled with those deep dark moments of self realization, actualization and self recognition.   Now it doesn't feel so awkward. Now it is a part of my every thought. Now the knowing is newly embraced and considered. Now I am not afraid to turn it over and examine it in a way that others might not. Now I get the story, the mystery and the intuition that I hadn't before. It was there before but unseen. I was afraid and unaware.  I lacked the ability to see it and feel it, I gave away my power to others. Now I see that rich beauty of this intuition for the gift and abundance that it is, really flowing freely. It is daunting to allow it to wash over me at times. It can feel like a tsunami or like a trickle of a brook. Either way, now I know it is real. That abundance and confidence of knowing has made me realize that the riches of this earth are just a part of the story, part of the fairytale of humanity. The fairytale I can write for myself. I had the power all along, I had the skills to manifest them.  I had given the skills and power away, wanting to fit in and be loved.  I now know I could never fit in. I now know that I can never find my desires fulfilled by others. It is mine to to fulfill, it is mine to do.  It is my work. My soul's mission. To stand in front of the mirror everyday and gaze upon the "me". The one that is different, the soul with skills, gifted divinely to my journey. 

It is my power to wield and own. Like a sword of great craftsmanship, that can have only one owner, one handler, one marksman. Owning the power to carve out and manifest all that my different little heart desires.   It is the legacy I had agreed to come here for. It is the invisible gift I leave for my children and friends. It is that one piece of abundance and spirituality I can skip wrapping and trimming. It will not fit into a box or bag, for it has no limits. There isn't a ribbon appropriate to adorn this. It will never be like the other gifts. It will always be different, somewhat awkward, raw, vulnerable and loving.

The past is a powerful mirror, the photograph unchanging in its shape while the present is my own inner mirror breathing, thinking, feeling and mindful. It is good to look back despite what Lot and his wife taught us. Reflection is only visible in stillness.  I am thankful for the stillness of the season of my reflection.