Today I glanced at the time and actually noticed my husband was late with his morning text. Then the car drove by throwing the paper on the driveway. I don’t read it until noon, so I never noticed when it came. Today I noted the time and thought 7:30 is kind of late for working people to get their morning paper.
It’s small things like this that wake up the person I lost last year. For months I didn’t care about too much past anything I was actually obliged to get up do. I was buried in prayer and books and writing, trying to make sense out of my terribly disjointed world. I’m watching all the people on the news whose lives were normal one day and the next day they are in jail with a whole lot of trouble and heartache ahead of them. I see parents in the news who lost children and the inexplicable pain of grieving they are going to face is heart wrenching. There is no harder work than making it to the other side of the five stages of grieving and remaining intact to talk about it.
Death is not the only thing we grieve. Any loss that’s a major blow to our heart will send us down that road. It is so true that when preciousness is ripped away from us, we are first angry and blaming everyone in sight, including ourselves. Next we just deny we ever lost anything and spend countless hours trying to figure out how to get it back. After that doesn’t ease the pain, we start to bargain with God, ourselves, and anyone who will listen. We start giving away everything we’re made of, just to have it “okay” again. By now, we’re so spent, the only road left is depression. Depression being the body’s own way of putting us at rest because we won’t do it consciously. It’s an inner time of fatigue and lethargy that’s necessary to quiet the anger and fighting we’ve been doing for months. I, myself, spent days and hours in one chair, only going to yoga each day which took enormous effort. All the while knowing this was not normal, but somehow knowing it was necessary. We were told in yoga to listen to our body. It always tells us what we need at a particular time and not listening can be more dangerous. After the rest of depression, we begin to move out of the chair in small ways, considering each time we get up and do something we’re not obligated to do, a small victory. I used to congratulate myself big-time for getting out of the chair at three pm and taking a walk. Every Monday actually getting to the store to buy groceries, was a major accomplishment. If I had events planned for the day, it was great relief at night that I went to each one. That’s how I knew I was going to eventually be okay. Once you reach this point, you are teetering on the verge of acceptance.
Acceptance is a whole new place. You suddenly appreciate a sunny day. There’s a spring in your step walking to the car in the morning that you haven’t felt for a long time. A great peace fills the stomach, heart, and mind. You still don’t have any answers. You still don’t know what the future will bring, but you are beginning to get the present back. There have been mornings this week, that I have said it’s better to sit and watch the news and stay present, rather than retreat to music and meditation. A sign the world is beginning to mean something to me again. That feeling of “in touch” is resurfacing.
The journey is far from complete, there will be setbacks, but I know I’m almost there. I also know I am a new and different person than the one that was thrown so unexpectedly into this journey. I now know what it means to be centered. That used to be just a term I heard over and over, but never quite grasped. Now it means that I am like a rock and everything starts within me and emanates out from me, instead of me chasing everything outside of me and grabbing at it to be happy. God resides in my heart, instead of riding shotgun and guides and directs every word I think, speak, or write and every action I perform. He also emanates from me, instead of me always grabbing at Him and begging.
It’s been a long five months, and while I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, I also wouldn’t trade it for anything. I felt compelled to share my journey via this blog to maybe help reassure someone else that they WILL be okay. I know when I was in my worst pain, I was grabbing and reading everything that told me I wasn’t going over the edge, that what I was feeling was all part of a process, and most of all I wasn’t the only person that ever experienced this. That, in itself, relieved a lot of anxiety.
And so, as another day goes by, I now know that before others can be important in my life, I have to be important to me, and ….I have written.
thank you for this writing in particular Linda…..this has hit home with me more than anything I have read & its huge for me to realize that the journey I am on right now is the right one for me. with much appreciation.