THIS TIME

I have often said that my life seems to traverse a path of circles or loop-backs. I began to notice this strange pattern of repeating or retracing several years ago, as early as childhood. I was moved around to several schools and homes with my family due to my father's job. In those days, family would just pack up and move when the father was "transferred". I saw myself as a sort of gypsy..no beginnings, no endings, a sort of "life traveler" belonging to no particular place or time.

A very favorite childhood book, "Half Magic" intrigued me and was a part of my few items I treasured before it, too was lost in one of the "moves". I saw myself as a creative energy, able to fit into all settings and make something out of anything...musings of a lost child? I am not so sure, the stories of my life many years later unmistakeably describe some spiritual force or Karma at work in and around me. I long ago lost shock and surprise at synchronous or serendipitous events which characterized my life. I began to feel as though the was a spirit force, a oneness with something...angels? heaven? Native American roots...I sure couldn't put my own name on it...but I surely had something going on...something that I began to learn was leading me on the paths I should follow, and something reassuring me that I was not alone, that I was being given angel smiles all the time....The repeating of scenarios makes me feel like second hand rose at times...perhaps that is God's humor or perhaps He feels I am more useful if I am placed in familiar settings to accomplish things...I was in 9 different grammar schools before I finished 8th grade...graduating from 8th grade in the same school I had started in Kindergarten.

Many years and much life forward..I am living in the home where my children were raised by my in laws while I worked...I often say I have become my ex mother-in law, or my own grandmother or something...I am raising my son's son in the same house..he and I attend games and care for him as I did with his father when he was a child..only now I'm a grandmother...it doesn't help the fact that I am in the same kitchen with my infant son, then with his infant son, doing the same things again...only this time..yes, THIS TIME, I am better..older, but better..kinder, more generous, more patient..and I am using these times...this time to do better what I had done before...a common theme in my heart about second chances and opportunities missed...as a "survivor" of more than one terminal or life threatening event, I am so grateful for THIS TIME, loop backs, repeaters or whatever you call it...I show up to life, and my Spirit guide, and say...OK Lord, I am following your lead This Time.......