There are days when I have the passing thought that it would be nice to go back to sleep, to lead a “normal” life like other people.

Then an inner chuckle begins, because there is no normal life–each manifestation is unique–and every life is perfectly normal. Both are true. Life simply lives. And my life looks pretty darn average.

Still. A dear friend and teacher, Elias Amidon said with great love on the phone one day, “Amrita, you’re ruined.”  He meant that when awareness–like the prodigal son–makes the turn for home, there comes a point of no return. Unlearning hits a certain momentum, and there is no going back, no falling asleep again. It changes primary relationships, friendships, work, sleep, darn! it changes everything.

For me, there has been a long period of adjustment. I spent two years coming undone as the earliest patterns of separation arose to be met. I was working at the University of Oregon at the time–perhaps that was a blessing. I had to shower, get dressed, interact with the public, and attend to myriad details eight hours a day, five days a week. I don’t actually know how that was accomplished, because I was a mess. I simply did not recognize myself. I cried more in those two years than I had in the previous thirty.

And now we’ve moved 500 miles, and we don’t really know why–picked up by the scruff of the neck and deposited in a new location. It’s like we are awaiting instructions. And yet it’s clear there is no going back.

© Amrita Skye Blaine, 2012