Lesson 34. Blooming late was better than not at all.

I wake in stages.

4:50.  Loud Ocean 98 music. (The breathing room of five extra minutes in the morning felt sooo luxurious, and sneaky, too--to switch from a 4:45 alarm to 4:50.  Isn't that silly?)

4:50.  I hit the snooze.  5:00.  I turn on the light.  5:06, :07, :08 I sit up.  Maybe 5:13, :14, :19. Depends.

It's not til I've literally soaked in hot shower water that I am fully functioning.

I wonder how many of us do this? Wake in stages.  The part that's always the same is always the same: snooze button first, then the light, then the little mantras.  I bet most people, probably all do this some kind of way, at least I bet we all have our own little funny personal rituals that bring in the day.

Here's why this is on my mind.  It is officially now one year that I turned in my resignation to the community college and left behind what had become, in the way that decisions happen by not making decisions, a career for me.  Eight years of getting educated on our social structures, on people, on non-profit work, on the education system and state and local and governmental fundings, and most of all on the lives and dynamics of the working poor in this country.  And I left because I was burnt dry, my job as a teacher and intake counselor not the first thing in my life that I'd left for that exact same reason.

It took me all that, every last breath of exhaustion and frustration, it took every mistake I made and goal I set and student I met and high-horse I rode to bring me to the place of finally saying my life is too short, Life's too short, to not focus it on exactly what I love.  I packed it in, and moved to the beach, thinking I was on my way to breaking in to the writing field in Baltimore after saving money for the summer.

Life taught me though, as it does.  And even that, perhaps especially that began a new series of waking.  In stages.  First the bare bones:  counting my blessings.  I was 33.  Single.  Career-less and moving back in with mom.  What was there to account?  Let me tell you I cultivated my riches.  Surrounded by 21-year-olds who didn't sleep, beached it on their days off and jammed their weeks with double-shifts and late nights outs?  A full year of only work, 12 hour days, and living in a midshore town with no friends, no family carried me through the misery of breaking up my long-term relationship, and now here I was surrounded by such different dynamics. There was something to learn here from this new life, and so I submitted.  The beach, the literal sand and sun and sea, brought out blessings that are inborn in me.  These young friends, and my family, and the hilarity of working in the restaurant biz again brought out the rest.

And how else is there to say it than to say it:  I've waken in stages.  Here I am, the onset of my thirty-fifth year and I think I've actualized me enough to really say:  I've bloomed, like come in a daily way in to the self I could've been.  On the outside what's to show?  I still live with my mom. I own nothing--but a car!!--it wasn't until my second job last month that I actually even had a savings account!  But I am all of me, all the me's I felt ashamed of or squandering after, all rolled in to one.  So I bloomed late.  It was what I wanted when I left Brandon those years ago.  To be my Self.  And the tragedy?  So few people take the Time to give themselves to the long process it takes.  So few people, I believe, bloom at all.

The reason I know I've sprouted?   Because here's what I intuitively have learned this past year, my lesson number 34 if you will.  There will be several more series of awakenings, lots more stages of life in which to develop and grow through, more and more.  I've no plateau, there is no "finally"--just periodic glimpses afforded by Life's grace to see exactly where were at, and take stock of the road over which we've travelled.  Those moments, I believe, that better help us identify where we want to go.  I will take it, being a late bloomer, knowing well and loving, especially loving, this woman I am travelling with. And more, knowing that I am constantly in flux with Life, in this ever ongoing swaying or frenzied dance.  Constantly unfolding.

I bloomed late, and am still budding, even as I anticipate the next seeds that fall.  I've awakened to myself in stages, recognizing that little awakenings, and the rest or times of submission that eventually open our eyes are so far the best parts of getting to go through any of this at all. 

I wonder at these little wakings.   How many other people do that, too?