Why am I still here?

The other day I heard from my friend DH.  She's been visiting her son in Florida and is seriously considering selling her Portland house and moving eastward.  She was calling me to hear just how difficult it was to leave my home and friends of 30 years.

I said, I would never move to Florida full time.  The summer heat is like an assault.  Why not live part time in Portland and part time in FLA, rent the PDX house to a Reedie?  She'd have the best of both worlds. That's been my dream, and I still think it's a viable one.  I went on and on about it, but that wasn't what she was interested in hearing. 

What, she said again, was it like to leave Portland?  I paused and thought.  "It was devastating," I said.  But, I was so exhausted by the failing marriage, I did not know which was the more devastating, leaving my home or losing my love.  She understood that pain.  Most divorced people do.  But it was beside the point.  I thought some more.  Why am I still here?

Thinking back over the past few years, I realized that I have not thought clearly about anything since at least 2009.  I have been reacting:  I didn't want to hurt D, I wanted to get out of MCL, I wanted to find a job after I was laid off.   Then, I moved to ABQ, left D, and started healing.  There were so many decisions, so many changes.  But throughout those changes, I never seriously thought about moving back to Portland, even after I left the ABQ job, even after I started burning out on my caregiving job.  I've been sending off the odd job application to Oregon, but I haven't seriously planned to move back.  If I wanted to move back, I could have gone back.  I could have healed there instead, surrounded by the people I love, a 2-hour drive from the ocean.  Instead, I stayed here and slept and healed and started to build a new community.  Now I've started over again in Taos.  My brain is clearer, and I want to know:  why am I still here?

While I talked with DH, I was walking on the trail behind the parking lot, surrounded by sage fields. My hair whipped in the breeze.  Mountains ringed the horizon.  The sky was a blue upended bowl, edges meeting the mountains, clouds painting swirled and striated patterns.  Two ravens winged their ways overhead.  I could hear the wind in their feathers.  I could hear a far-off caw, see them circle around each other, and then watch them fly steadily west towards the mountains. I had that feeling of serenity and grounding that I get when I walk along the ocean's edge or in a mountain meadow.

Is this where I'm meant to be?