UNIVERSE: Hey slacker, get off your ass and start telling people your story. I didn't gift you with a big mouth for nothing.
ME: Who are you calling a slacker you jack ass? I had a busy year mang! You do know I'm an entrepreneur, mother of two small children, my husband operates a daycare out of our home and for shits and giggles I chose to live with my high drama brother right? It's a small miracle the kids are actually alive and with all their original body parts in tact! I am still waiting for my "Mother Of The Year" award.
UNIVERSE: It's go time. I gave you enough "synchronicities" that even you can no longer ignore it. Accept your fate. Unleash the voice.
ME: (Shakes my fist into the air) You go blog! There's an episode of The Originals on my PVR. I need my Ian Somerhalder fix! Mmmmmm... nummy... there's priorities in my life you know!
UNIVERSE: (Hijacks my life line, aka my iPhone, and dramatically inserts this):
ME: Whoa dude... shits got real.
As Audrey's dear friend Rosie had commented above, it has been almost a year since I put my crazy thoughts into form. My year long hiatus is not actually due to lack of content but more like it's just been crazy busy. Time has literally slipped through my fingers. If you follow my Facebook rants and musings you'll know that my time has been hilariously fully booked by my personal Yin and Yang team (the kids). Like a seasoned sadomasochist, whatever time is left over is squeezed for the good, the bad and the ugly retail world I subject myself to and if I'm really good at time management, I drink... a lot. Last year also brought on some good ol' fashion, intense family drama that required a halt of everything else just to sort through the mess. And I'm not talking about the kind of drama where you find out during a Thanksgiving dinner that your Aunt Edna lost her virginity at band camp. I'm talking more like if Maury Povich and Grey's Anatomy had a baby, they would have birthed "Holy Effin Hannah and Damn That's Gonna Hurt" drama. And even with all that juicy content, I still wasn't seduced enough to share it.
I just chose to stay quiet. On the down low. Just observing. Assimilating new information. Purging destructive old constructs. Breathing life into new ideas. Re-examining patterns. Closing chapters that have been read. Letting go of behaviors that no longer serve. Enjoying the small moments. Showing appreciation to those that hold me up. Just being.
Then something shifted in mid March. I remember catching an update out of the corner of my eye from one of my friends back in February so I went back to refer to it:
As referred to by Joy's post, right on cue my world has markedly intensified since March 21st. It started with my good friend Jenn. Her favorite Auntie Lorraine suffered a heart attack followed by a stroke back in late November. Auntie Lorraine's fighting spirit kept her bound to her family for a couple months but then on March 26th she slipped into eternal peace. As with the loss of all beloved family members, time will eventually heal Jenn's broken heart but in the meantime a niece is in pain.
On April 3rd, Rick Hansen's grandson passed away one day before he was expected to be born. We worked quite intimately with the Hansen's on their new home last year and forged an amazing bond to the family. When we heard their eldest daughter Emma was pregnant, both Rachael and I squealed in delight and our hearts grew a thousand fold because we knew this little one was being born into the most loving family. For almost nine months, we kept a pulse on Emma's pregnancy as we too were eager to meet the newest member of this blessed clan. On Good Friday, one day before Emma was suppose to deliver, her sweet little Angel decided to return amongst the Heavens. My heart broke at the devastating news and I bawled as I read the incoming text from Krista. Although I personally never met Emma, I felt in that dark moment her tragic story could have easily been any of ours: http://www.sincerelyskin.ca/blog/2015/04/13/born-still-but-still-born/.
In an attempt to stay healthy, our family has enlisted the services of a personal trainer to keep us motivated as we approach our mid life crisis. Clive has been working with everyone in our family (ironically with the exception of me) to get us all into shape since last year. Tragically, last month his mother instantly died in a freak car accident. When we heard the awful news everyone fell silent. Last year, Clive's best friend took his own life and shot himself in the head with a gun. The insurmountable loss that this one human has experienced within one year is beyond comprehension. Yet... some how, Clive is back at the gym and still pushing his clients to be their very best.
In the middle of April, my professional sidekick Rachael was also forced to say goodbye to an Aunt that was battling cancer. We knew of her ailing health for about a year now so her death was not a surprise but her timing was eerily accumulative. One of the perks of being my professional sidekick is that you're exposed to my crazies 24/7 so being the bright girl that she is, I'm sure the synchronicities piling up in both our lives was becoming unnerving.
At the end of April, Khanh one of my best friends texts me that her husband lost his job of 15 years. I stare at my phone in disbelief. My poor friends have been struggling with a lot of issues for many years now and this event I knew would be the turning point in their lives. I can feel it. For the next hour I'm on the phone doing the best I can to support them through this. This one really pulls on the heart strings and I send a prayer to the Universe to give them the strength to get them gracefully passed this.
In between all of this, my brother finds an amazingly sweet dog just happily lost amongst the bushes. He tries to locate the owner but then decides to adopt him after realizing the teacup Yorkie was in really poor health probably due to the fact the previous owner neglected him. He names the spunky fur-ball Linus and as with every responsible dog dad, he takes him to the vet for check-ups. On the advisement of the vet, Lairay decides to go ahead with a surgery that removes a dozen rotten teeth to improve his quality of life. Linus goes into shock from the complications of the surgery. Over a period of a week and thousands of dollars later, Linus' health is precariously teetering on the brink of life and death. My brother, guilt ridden for unwittingly putting him through the surgery makes the heart breaking decision to administer the last needle to end the poor creature's suffering. Linus is now in doggy heaven running with our other dogs Yipsy and Loonie.
Last week, Steph notices an odd Facebook post on my best friend Aliea's wall. I check in to see if everything is okay only to learn that absolutely nothing is okay. Her brother Bob, discovered their eldest brother Eddie, dead in his room. I go into shock. My heart literally stops beating. I can't find my breath. Eddie is just a couple years older than me so I think he's almost 40. I force myself to focus on the computer screen to make sure I read it correctly. Unfortunately I did. The autopsy results won't be back for a while but already the preparations to say goodbye to Eddie were under way. For the next couple of days I follow my other family through a stream of texts and every night I hug my immediate family a little tighter and tell everyone I love them.
I'm not exactly sure what's going on. All I can sincerely say is the Earth... or rather we, have gone through some major shift since March. I can feel a marked difference and because of this, I have broken my year long silence. Coaxed out of hiding, I am sent signs that it's time to share...
ME: Okay Upstairs Peeps, as requested I've opened my big mouth. You better have my back...
UNIVERSE: You're not alone. You're not the only one that has to share their story. Everyone needs to share their story. That's how you'll know we're actually one.
