The Day After

I did it.  I completed the concert I've been planning for nine months and prepping for my whole life.  I'm more proud of myself than I thought I would be - thought I could be.  I created and executed a concert where I finally shared my story with the audience.  Healing is hard, but it is worth the effort.  I'm feeling grateful to have offered what I did with this concert and am Reminded that I do have courage and the ability to do courageous things.  I just have to decide and keep taking one next step at a time...until it's here...and then it's happening...and then the moment becomes a part of the beautiful memory bank.  

I was so emotionally exhausted that once I had a moment to breathe, I took myself to a day spa on a day I thought it would be quietest and I just was quiet.  I spent the day thinking and feeling and sleeping.  Processing emotions can be tiring and I needed a nap.

And I knew this would happen.  I've done shows and concerts before.  Whether the run was for a few weeks or a few days or just one night, there is always that beat when it's complete where I think, "Ah, it's over now".  There is a mourning of sorts.  Deeply grateful and humbled by the experience, excited to move on but also will miss the experience.  I think actually what it is is that when you are fully creating art, or fully engaged in whatever it is that is your thing, you are in the flow.  When you're in the flow, you're living in to the best and most authentic version of you - and damn if it isn't the most beautiful feeling there is.  I want to live in that place.  And I know I can - I know we can. 

So because I've done this kind of thing quite a bit, I know that the day after can hit differently.  It's interesting to walk around the world that day.  You have just done something incredible for yourself (and others), and yet...

The world has changed entirely and yet not at all.

The cafe is still open downstairs with the same people in it.

The boats and trains and helicopters and planes are still moving around on time.  

The sun is up, the birds flying, the water moving and splashing up on the river bank as it always has.  

There is life and love and joy and also pain and sorrow and death.  There is all of this beauty I just created and also no less than two wars also on this earth.  The juxtaposition.  To be so big and so small at the same time.  

That's the day after - in my soul at least. 

And then what after that?  What happens on the day after the day after, if you're lucky enough to have them?  

Normally I would throw myself into the next thing.

Not this time.

This time I am still.  I'm listening.  I'm feeling.  I'm curious and I'm watching.  

I've got a few hunches, but I don't want to rush.  I want to stay in the gratitude energy and make sure I soak it all up.  I want to replenish myself so that when I continue to create the next thing or engage in the next conversation, I'm doing it from a grounded place. 

There is no rush.  There is no early.  There is no late.