I AM... Searching For Answers.

Soon after I met Kristin, she explained that she always knew when something was "for her" because it had a spiral on it. She has a spiral tattoo on her forearm and her home, now our home, was full (tastefully) of spirals - the legs on the tables next to the couch, the silverware, the enormous black spiral on the wall above her/our bed that holds more than a dozen votive candles. I'd been trying to own that exact piece for years. 

Leaving no room for confusion, I grabbed a thick purple Sharpie from the sacred Sharpie collection and drew a spiral on the inside of my left wrist. I was for her. Done.

The beginning of us was a strange story - something like single mom of two ever present young children meets and falls immediately in love with her temporary postal worker. I fell in love with her immediately... yes, in the actual post office. Our first two conversations took place over a chest high counter and a surreal volume of packages (I was in charge of shipping for an online auction.), which Kristin lovingly offered to run again when she got to the bottom of the stack to get us another hour or so together. 

Emails were exchanged. Another visit to the post office. And still having not spoken a single word to one another outside of the post office, I invited (begged in my head) her to come over after work on Friday. We talked, without eating or drinking or touching, throughout the night and then she left at 8:00 am to go back to work. The children and I took her coffee a few hours later. I was not the hostess with the mostest but she was for me. 

On our first proper date, two weeks later, I had that spiral tattooed on my wrist. She got a butterfly with a cross in the middle where a watch face would go to remind her that with patience beautiful things would come. 

I told her, "At this moment, we look absolutely insane - our friends and family will be terrified - but in 10 years this will be the most romantic story ever." 

At the end of July, it will be four years and frankly, it's already our story is pretty damn charming.

This morning, one of my colleagues posted a great picture on Facebook. It's just a picture of the words "I believe..." written on the palm of somebody's hand. It reminded me of the story of my spiral tattoo. I've been ready for another piece of body art - and my nose pierced - for some time but I'm unsure of what and I'm not really the impulse tattoo kind of girl. 

I know that I don't want "I believe..." because I don't need to be reminded of that which I believe in. TI's not something I struggle with. This year, and the couple that came before it, are all about... something else. Something deeper. Something.

All of the searching, discovering, accepting... the empowering of me by me (with support, of course). The coaching. The writing. The learning. The careful making and keeping of commitments to myself, and others. The determined pushing of lines I never even used to have the courage to look at. This has been about finding out what I'm made of and how I can use it to change the world around me. 

This is about finding out who... I am. 

On Sunday (yes, in my Kundalini Yoga class), we did more "I am..." work. What came up for me was abundant. Each thing that floated up into my mind came with abundant - abundantly loved, abundantly creative, abundantly passionate, abundantly awake, abundantly joyful. 

Abundant is certainly an I Am that I can dig and still, I crave more. There are so many parts of myself that are out of alignment. What about abundantly energetic? , abundant confidence? And, have you seen my abundantly abundant? 

In truly Christy form, I will use what I've discovered and accepted about who I am. Meanwhile, the search within, the search for who in the heck "I am" continues.

Now... about that tattoo?