Beginning ... Again

Choosing Life, Joy, and Becoming Amid Change

It’s been a while.
I’m not sure where to start.

My life has changed dramatically — in the last month, in the last six months, in the last three years.

Leaving and Returning

Five years ago, my daughter and I moved from Portland, Oregon, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Though I had grown up in Tulsa, we chose it for its low real estate prices and, for my daughter, warmer weather. It also meant living in the same city as my father for the first time in 35 years.

All was good for a bit. And then it wasn’t. Very quickly, I was reminded of why I had left after high school. Unfortunately, my daughter soon understood my reluctance to return.

Tulsa’s Beauty and Boundaries

Geographically, Tulsa is a pretty city. Sitting on the edge of the Ozarks, it isn’t flat or tumbleweed-infested. With its oil-industry wealth, the city has beautiful architecture, cozy neighborhoods, and a lovely park along the Arkansas River.

Spring and fall are wonderful, but summer — five months of hot, humid air and poor air quality — is hard to bear.

There’s also an insularity — a strong sense of groups, often organized around church, wealth, or race. While the segregation of my childhood has lessened, an energetic separation remains. There’s always a sense of insider and outsider, no matter where you go or what the line of division might be.

Chalking it up to “good life experience,” we decided that when the time was right, we’d move on.

Family and Fallout

Three years ago, before that plan solidified, the step monster — my father’s second wife — convinced my two younger sisters that I was stealing from my father.

Neither sister approached me. I heard about it from my father himself — furious, not at me, but at them.

It began the three worst years of my life. During the first, I paused my moving plans, unsure whether I’d need to help my 92-year-old father adjust his situation. When it became clear he would stay as he was, I began to plan again.

Hospice and Goodbye

About 18 months ago, a family friend called to ask why I hadn’t been to the hospital — shocked to learn that no one had told me my father was in hospice.

I went immediately. When the step monster heard of my visits, she demanded I not be admitted.

Let’s just say: she didn’t get her way.

I visited daily, helped where I could, and shared time with my father. He acknowledged his wife’s and daughters’ behavior and told me not to let their actions keep me from my life.

A year ago, I moved from Tulsa to Vermont — with him still in hospice. He had always encouraged me to live free from Oklahoma’s boundaries, and that moment was no exception.

In March, my cousin called to tell me of his passing. Later that day, he came to me — apologizing. I told him I was okay and that he could move on to his next great adventure. I believe he has.

A New Life Unfolds

Surprisingly, the last six months have been incredibly creative. I can barely get out of bed without a dozen new ideas bursting forth.

Everything is new — my home, my website, my workbooks, my soon-to-be-published books. My services and teaching have evolved. My life has shifted from a straight path to a spiral of unexpected opportunity.

When I look back 35 years, nothing is the same as I imagined it would be — and yet, I am more me now than ever before.

Becoming Myself Again

What has stayed constant through all of it — the joy, the grief, the change — is my essential self. I have always found a way to turn challenge into deeper seeing, to meet myself again and again.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about metamorphosis. That is what this year in Vermont has been: a dissolution of the old and the emergence of new wings.

Life is a crucible — refining, brushing away the dust of what no longer serves. The caterpillar spins its cocoon, believing it is the end, but what feels like breakdown is always breakthrough.

Choosing the Path Forward

Many of us are feeling the door slams — terrified by the current path, tempted to reject the outsider. I don’t claim to have the answers. My way forward rests in the questions — in choosing the unanticipated, the unimagined, the odd direction.

I see opportunity in the unknown and the uncertain. It’s about letting go of control, of perfection, of the need to be right or validated as worthy.

This isn’t the easy path. It’s the path where truth emerges — in the release, in the breath, in the willingness to begin again.

The Journey of a Thousand Miles

The wisdom still rings true: the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

At some point, you simply choose to begin.

In this moment, I choose to begin — again. Not because the last step was wrong, but because each step brings me to a new version of myself, ready to choose again.

I live life exactly as I choose — whether I cower in fear or step boldly into the unknown. Or if I step always to the threshold in this moment of the unknown, the unexpected, and the uncertain.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: life isn’t in what you choose, but in how you choose. There is no destination — only this moment, and the choice within it.