Validation

val·i·date  (vl-dt) tr.v. val·i·dat·ed, val·i·dat·ing, val·i·dates 1. To declare or make legally valid. 2. To mark with an indication of official sanction. 3. To establish the soundness of; corroborate.

So we have moved into our new home, have started settling into our new environment, but have not entirely grasped that this is our new reality and life...everything still seems seems unreal and as if it is not our 'real' life, but rather a vacation, an extended vacation, or simply a dream...until this week. My daughter, Arya, is visiting us for the week from the Mainland...and though last week my cousin and family were here for a vacation, the presence of my daughter here establishes a grounding and reflection that we have not had until this point.

Although she is away at college and we are empty-nesters, nonetheless, she was not long ago a part of our day-to-day life in suburbia, or 'suburgatory' as I am liking to call it these days:) So she is the voice of my former life and the life which I left behind...it is a life that she did not leave behind, for she is here for only a week and is on a short vacation and her quest is to gain a tan before she goes back to college at UNR. Her observations are different than mine...her observations are that of an outsider, from my former life, observing the life that I have stepped into. And this is my new life, and it is such a different one than the one that I had such a short time ago...but I forget that, being submerged and wanting so desperately to have this become my reality and my truth. I forget that Danville is where she is from, where she considers 'home' and where she, as a 19 year old, has every right to embrace and continue to be drawn to as her 'home base.'

After the first night here, she requested earplugs, for she was not used to the 'island noises' at night, as the sound of nature kept her awake, awoke her, and was generally bothersome. My home is basically open to the outside at all times, and nature permeates inside the home. I am constantly aware of the various birds, roosters, chickens, crickets, mosquitos, geckos, butterflies and other creatures that exist just outside my door...in fact, I now can distinguish the crowing of the different roosters and know them by sight.

But certainly this is not how life in 'suburgatory' is, was, or ever will be...this is a more open life, open to nature, open to the world and more open to possibilities. I can feel it, I can smell it, I can taste it, touch it and hear it. It is a reality that seems to be closer to nature and to the senses, and because of that, perhaps a reality that is closer to the truth, or at least the truth that I am seeking.

So there is validation in my reality now...validation that acknowledges the place from which I came...to the place that I now live and am embracing as my reality and life. Noone here knows that I stood in the rain at the Bart station...that I ran in high heels to catch a train, that I got home some nights from work at midnight on the last day of the month only to have to return hours later, that there were months where I had to work 12 days straight, because that is how the month 'fell.'

I am through chasing and running through life. I am over running for anything in my high heels...for there is simply nothing I need so badly that I am in such a hurry. Arya has reminded me of the life that I left behind...and though I miss the people I have left behind, I do not miss the life. I am not in a hurry, I am not running to or from anything, I am content in keeping the pace that I keep, and I feel like I am in a place that will be content in my doing so.