I’ve gone through a big transformation again. It’s so subtle and simple, it’s almost like a whisper. But what it has done to me is reaching a lifelong dream.

I went to a women’s summer camp in Michigan early this month. I drove all the way there, and by the time I arrived home in Billings 2 weeks later I’d taken a journey of 3,500 miles. While on my trip, all the journaling and meditative time spent in my interior helped me…move on.

It’s nothing earth shattering to anyone else. But the shifts in ME are real and permanent.

I’ve written about an experience I had in my late 20’s in San Francisco before, so I’ll be succinct. I was a Director/Teacher at a Parent-Teacher Co-Op and the parents were my clients…and my bosses. It was a challenge for me, because I didn’t see eye to eye with some of them and choices they wanted to make for the program. As part of our professional organization’s teacher development, we met other Co-Op directors at their schools once a month. I was able to meet an experienced sage of a woman from another co-op. She was sitting in a craftsman rocking chair, long white hair on her head. She had a few kids crawling on her. I instantly wanted to BE her. I asked her advice.

Me: How do you handle it when they want to make decisions you know are bad?

Wise old woman: I just let them make their decisions.

Since I was twenty-eight years old I have been wanting to be that at peace with the world. I have ached for that kind of peace. I have spent endless hours hustling and striving for that kind of peace. I have thought about her almost every day since, wishing to have that level of chill. This school year, this rotten, ridiculous school year, I had a little theme of “Goddess of Chill,” based on a magnet Amber and Rowan gave me years ago. Spoiler Alert: this was not a Goddess of Chill school year.

While sitting on the floor at camp in my gloriously cool “camp creek chair,” writing in my journal to prompts our leader Sunshine was giving us…I realized I had landed in my goal. I got so antsy with the realization that my legs started shaking. I felt myself arrive at CRONE with my entire body.

It was like giving birth to myself.

I’m not here to tout myself as some sort of mystical sage or mysterious guru. Far from it.

I am me. So solidly me, that my me-ness gives me a level of chill that I have not once in my life experienced until now. I can just do today. No matter what is thrown at me…I can do today. I can fight for rights that have been taken today. I can take care of children, feed pets, make space, make calls today. I can feel rage, sadness, kindness, patience, and love today. Knowing all that matters is right now is some high octane chill. It’s the good stuff that is saved for company.

I make plans all the time. And none of it rips me out of this little chill space I have in my heart so much that I lose Crone. Because I am her. Forevermore.