Living a Legacy

So often we hear about leaving a legacy- what your community, friends and family will remember you by, when your time on earth has come to pass. But since the passing of my own Mom, quite suddenly, (despite there being the dreaded "c" diagnosis, it wasn't from cancer per se and it was incredibly sudden), I've been turning my focus to my own legacy and the notion of  LIVING my Legacy, more so that worrying what legacy I'll be leaving.

Living vs. Leaving, is any "background" needed? I think we all get the inherent differences between the two, one connotes closure, the other - a dynamic, today, this present moment, notion...Living, breathing, experiencing, sensing, sucking the marrow out of life...that's living. Leaving is - I'm done. Things are finished here, I'm moving on.  And so as I sit with the idea of what my own legacy will be, when my days on earth are done, I've realized, that if I can find a way to be present and truly live the life I am called to, and work at something that fulfills a perceived higher purpose, I might just be able to LIVE my legacy, and even enjoy the fruits of it as I create it.

I am so, so, many things, much more than the titles I bear:wife/mother Step Mother/believer/worker bee...I am:

An explorer, an emotional scuba diver (credit to my dear friend for bestowing this most appropriate title years ago!), a connector, a supporter, a ponder-er, a creator, a pursuer, a doer, a child of God, a child of wonder (even at 45) a philosopher, a tragic purveyor of throw pillows, a sometimes short patience-waiter, a high expectations "expect-or", a hold your hand while you get the call-er,  a wanna be Yogi, a grace giver, my own worst critic,  a too-rigid house run-er, and so much more....Yes, I am the text

book definition of a dichotomy. Isn't that the crux of humanity? We are both good and evil, joy and sorrow filled, pain and pleasure inducing...we are onions, people, hopefully less odiferous, I pray, but as complex and layered. How does one live their legacy, when we have so many unanswered questions about ourselves? What direction do we go, how do we know if that's really it? Once again I say God could have really done us all a solid and delineate  his voice (of course, a deep, booming, all-knowing tambor) from our own. Or perhaps, if our exchanges with him showed up in our mind as a play with parts noted-

        God: CINDI

        Cindi : Yes? Who is it? Wait, am I talking to myself? Because it sounds like my voice. Yea, I'm definitely talking to myse....
      
        God: CINDI! NO! It is I, your Lord and Savior, the one you affectionately refer to in texts as "JC" -Your gift is (insert spiritual gift here) Go to (insert specific address) on (insert specific date & time) to fulfill your destiny.

If only things were more explicit, right?

I recently left a professional role that I loved - at least I think I loved it. I certainly loved the people surrounding it, and the idea of it, but as I get some distance, I'm realizing more and more that I not only crave to be in deep connectedness with my family and close friends, I have a instinctual longing for recognizing the connection and commonalities across my community, and humanity as a whole as well. That rambling paragraph above??? All those things I am? I bet I could find a litany of people, all genders, all walks of life that could echo those same sentiments. "We are more alike than we are unalike." Amen.

As I explore what's next for me professionally and I allow for dead space in my day- to just let the thoughts come, and forgo my every-expanding gotsta's list, I realize I don't want to just leave a legacy .I want to live it first.