Moving Forward again.

Felt like I should write today with it being New Years Day,  I am sitting here in the studio looking at the snow falling outside the window, eating my freshly popped bag of kettle corn and pondering over where to start. Not getting anything specific, I just decided to sit and start typing and see what comes, so here goes!
 
There's been so much change over the last year and I feel like my emotions have just now started to catch up with it all. There was a saying that I had a friend say all the time in the east before I came west
‘I am tasting salt’. Its meaning, that tears are being shed and tasted. That’s been much of how I have spent the last year, tasting salt. With all that has happened, the changes, the losses, the recovery, there has been a lot of salt tasted. Salt is an incredible healing agent. And I guess one can suppose that even shedding our tears through seasons of hardship help to bring an incredible healing along the way. I have never been one to ‘hide’ much emotionally. I learned a long time ago that stuffing our pain can be one of the most destructive forces In our lives. That being said, I have learned that fully embracing ‘pain’ is essential to allow the work of healing to come in our life. This last year has been a work of recovery one step at a time, embracing a new life and learning to move forward in the most of unfamiliar territory.
 
Being in a 38 year relationship and waking up one day to discover that it abruptly changed due to illness was one of the rudest awakenenings I have ever experienced. It has been a year of establishing new ground on so many levels. Finding myself on firm footing one day, and feeling like I had slipped off the edge the following. Its taken me a year of grueling emotional work to find stability within and find resolve with this new life that I had no idea would be just around the bend. I am moving forward, its been a long process, one that I dare not desire to repeat anytime soon!
 
But in the midst of all the hardship, change and challenges I have faced over the last year, I am always amazed at how things play out as I plod along in life. Not to say that I have not had plenty of help over the last year. Encouragement from friends to stay the course has been an incredible resource to help me move forward. Without those positive voices I might have sunk more than I swim. I have truly been ‘held’ this year by so many friends, and am so grateful for the community of such in my life.
 
Finding an incredible friendship cultivate out of such hard circumstances was a complete surprise. In the richness of friendship life is watered to allow positive growth , nurturing and healing. I have been lucky and blessed to find myself smack in the middle of just such a friendship. The value of which I have learned to embrace far greater than ever before.
 
And…  my horses are home again. Unexpected blessings arrived in a text and a phone call just over a month ago. If you recall, I had re-homed my ponies last spring in face of what unknowns lay before me. It was a heartbreaking thing to do but I knew in my heart is was the right thing to assure them the stability they needed. Unbenowest to me, did I know that I would ever be getting them back. But the opportunity was presented to me just weeks ago, and I knew then if I didn’t take them back I may never see them again.  So here I am just at a year after horrible circumstances unfolded finding them in my life again, forever this time. The two wild mustang girls are thriving at the sanctuary and will live out their lives being the ‘wild children’ that they are. Regaining them back into my family is like having my arms and legs re-attached and feeling more like a whole person than ever before. I am ‘still’ in process and ‘still’ learning, that as much as we plan, hope and desire…there are times that we have little control over what happens in our lives, and either we bend to conform to its challenges, or we break over our lack of resistance to bend. This has been my year of learning to bend like never before.
 
I find myself today in a new place, in many ways.
I find myself today moving forward, in heart and in life.
I find myself today still learning, still loving, still open handed for the best that life has to offer.
I find myself today still standing even though life through one of its hardest curve balls.
 
Its winter, snow has settled in, and its my Que to begin the creative journey full throttle once again. As I sit here in the studio, looking at the guitars, bass, piano, paintings on the easel and scribbles in my notebooks,  I am inspired as I make plans to write new music, paint new art, tour and travel once I finish up the murals on the ‘little red roan’ vintage RV.  I am finding myself,  back after nearly a year of little painting, which I might add feels really good. I have spent a lot of time refocusing and looking on’ the hows’ I wish to move forward with the art and the music. I am excited at the opportunities that lie ahead and have a fresh outlook on the changed future that is ahead of me. I have changed my name back to my maiden name, hope to not confuse anyone, I am rediscovering ‘Me’ and forming life as I know it as I move forward. I will be making changes on the website and my facebook business page, so stay tuned as I finalize those changes.
 
I find myself moving forward again, and it feels damn good.
Never give up, and never stop hoping for unexpected blessings.
I look forward to 2019, to its challenges, its friendships, its successes and losses.
Hope you do too!
And as always, You will find me ‘Running with the Horses, like never before!’
 
Melody DeBenedictis