My Salvation

When I was searching for my happiness, contentment and simple joy I questioned everything. I questioned life. Why was I here? What was I suppose to accomplish? How was I to do it? Where did I start? What are my goals? I struggled to find these answers. I had my job, home and lifestyle, but it didn't feel like I belonged. I'd been all over the world before I was thirty-two, but didn't find peace anywhere. I checked Austria, Thailand, Italy, France, Germany, Cambodia, Brazil, St Lucia, Canada and all over the United States, but contentment was illusive. I tried ruins and tarot cards. I prayed to mother earth, god and goddess.

I looked for answers in books, songs, rainbows and long contemplative walks with my dogs. I asked the great Comfort Maple Tree what I should do, not knowing advice is only requested when you knew the answer, but did't like it. 

I called it the search for my happiness. I was restless. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. On a crazy path of destruction the day came when things broke. I waited six months before I left my partner of fifteen years. I was thirty-five and it broke my heart. 

I jumped ship. I left my marriage. I got a divorce. It's a long complicated story, but the ending is the same. I floundered lost in a sea of unrest. I sought comfort in all the wrong places and learned some harsh life lessons. Mostly, I learned that I knew nothing. 

My salvation was the farm. 

That statement is difficult to make because I've always believed that happiness is something on the inside and has nothing to do with environment, but my raw wounds were healed by the comfort of the farm. 

The familiar smells brought on sleep in the night. The gentle breeze returned my appetite and I started to eat again. It was time to change my goals. 

I started gathering animals. The animals nobody wanted. Pigs and goats, chicken and bunnies. Oh, the joy they brought to my life. Their happy noises when I'd come to feed or talk. My dogs gave me something to care and cuddle. They demanded to be physical attention and I started to feel alive again. 

Slowly I began to see the sunrise, hear the katydids and smell the fresh cut hay. I began to take new joy in my days and started to fear the nights a little less. 

I can remember the day when I'd seen a frog lazying in the sunshine enjoying life and I had a distant thought that perhaps I was ready to meet someone new. Would he be a knight in shining armor or an idiot wrapped up in tin foil? I met Brent gravely unsure what this man would bring to my life and I didn't feel quite ready, but I recognized I had a wealth of luck brewing in my soul. The tide turned. 

I told him right off that I didn't want to get married and he laughed. He didn't try and persuade me differently, he didn't talk more on the subject, he just laughed. We're getting married in September and I'm not quite sure how he did it, but I'm happy about it.

It's nice to be carried along by someone else's goals. It's nice to feel the trust you can have in another person to direct your life. It's nice to not always be in charge or in control. It's nice to let go and enjoy the ride. My questions are answers and I found my peace in a small farm, with a kind man and pile of heartbeats to look after. I have my family after all.