Drops of Jupiter

...She checks out Mozart while she does Taebo / Reminds me that there's room to grow hey hey. (Train)

Me: I haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up.

Kids: <rolling eyes> Mommy, you're already grown up

Me: <with a twinkle in my eyes> No I'm not

My children are growing and changing by leaps and bounds. And I'm growing and changing along with them.

A friend told me the other day "Nothing changes except that which is unreal". If that's true, then my list of things which are unreal include: my friendship and marriage to a man for 11 years, my close relationship with my kids, a list of friends and acquaintances that I rely on for support every day, my involvement in the community, my ability to play keyboards and (sort of) sing along, this blog and other things that I attempt to write, and my newly-moved-in-to apartment (as opposed to my old condo or my old house). All changes and choices I've made in the past 5 years. All seemingly very real changes.

I look back on who I was 20, 10 or even 5 years ago, return to places where I lived in those years, and ... I don't recognize myself in them. I recognize the places, see people I used to interact with, but the person I am today would interact in those communities very differently then I did back then. And I can barely remember who I was in them at that time.

And yet, I understand what my friend is saying. All our surroundings, all the actions we take in those surroundings, are unreal relative to who we are at our core. Who we are, our essence, our soul, doesn't change.

My children were born with a core essence. My job as a parent is to allow their essence to come through in everything they do. To bring out their likes and dislikes, help them discover their strengths and weaknesses, give them the opportunity to discover who they are and how they want to live their life to make it as fulfilling for them as it can be.

Who we are, inside, is what is real. Everything else is just trappings.

But damn it, those trappings seem pretty damn real sometimes. And figuring out who I am, just as my children are figuring out who they are, is pretty damn difficult in amongst all the trappings of homework, work deadlines, chores, friendships and family pressures.

So sometimes, I need to let my mind travel to Jupiter, away from everyone and all the day-to-day pressures, to sail across the sun / dance along the light of day. Until I'm ready to head back towards the Milky Way. In order to re-discover during that journey, who I am. And return, with drops of Jupiter in my hair, to the unreal world, ready to change my unreality as necessary to better be who I really am.