Shine

Before I met my current husband and moved to Canada,  I lived in Minneapolis. I had moved there with my soon to be first husband in 1992.  He and I divorced a couple of years later and even though we were both born and raised in NY, we loved Minneapolis so much we each stayed. After we split, I dated a series of bad choices, all of whom struggled with addiction issues. An unfortunate side effect of being in the restaurant business. I had a great job and a had bought a house but I wasn't happy. I was working hard and partying harder, just about off the rails.

And somehow fate intervened and I ended up in a tiny little town in northwestern Ontario. I was on a fishing trip with a friend and met my husband.  He proposed the night he met me and although it's been a bumpy ride, we've been together happily for 10 years.
I left behind my life in Minneapolis and haven't really looked back.

But this weekend,  he and I will be travelling to Minneapolis to see Bruce Springsteen in concert on Monday night. It's been a long time since I've been back and I am a very different person than I was when I lived there. I've calmed down, I'm more grounded and I am for sure a happier person than I can remember ever being. It's a struggle, but I'm still working on it. Everyday. As I like to say.

In two days I will step into a place I haven't been in a long time. Geographically or emotionally. And while we're there, I'll be visiting some old haunts and seeing some old faces. It's becoming clear this trip is more than a weekend getaway; it's an emotional homecoming.

I tend to stress over the smallest of details at the best of times (something I am actively working on), so coordinating a cross-border holiday really instigates my worry wart. Suffice to say, I am having a 'bit' of anxiety. But all this anxiety is self-generated. No one has put any pressure on me at all, it's just the old voices rising out of the depths. I'm not going to listen to them, I'm going to keep on letting my light shine.

The view out my window tonight.