Grief - It is part of life - Letting go

I feel like I have been grieving for the past few months.  Maybe due to the holidays or the weather or work slowing down for the holidays.  I don't really know what triggered it but I haven't felt like doing anything and have spent a lot of time doing nothing but watching TV.

The last two weeks I have felt a kind of a shift an opening up of my mind and my heart. The flow that I live in most of the time resuming and a this period of mourning ending. That is what I am doing I realize I am mourning the life that I will not have.

I went to a memorial yesterday that was packed - virtually no mask - what can I say?  A few lone wolves like myself mulling around.  We might as well had the mark of the beast on our foreheads the service being held in a fundamentalist church. If you wear a mask you don't trust God.

I get this because I was raised in a church like this and I really have no animosity towards these people because they are my people even if I don't blindly follow their beliefs. When they played a couple of praise and worship songs tears came to my eyes. 

I guess my point is that their heart is in the right place just like every other religion.  The core is truth, love and kindness but when humans are involved with our egos in charge we distort everything.  We want to feel we are special and part of an elite group of people chosen by God. This makes of secure and able to get up every morning and face the day.

We are all special and no life is worth more than another. We have to see that everyone is struggling especially now and deserve respect no matter where they are in life.  This of course is hard in practice because it is painful to see people suffer from their mistakes over and over again. We all can only be where we are in life right now.

I have suffered from my own mistakes.  Some of the things that happened to me I had no control over but I still felt somehow responsible. I thought I was damaged somehow and this is why these things were happening to me. If I hadn't raised myself I would have been told that this is just what life is like and it isn't anyone's fault. Life can really suck sometimes.

Final note my ex came into the showroom with parents in tow this week. 12 years have passed and there they were. I was on the floor and was blindsided I turnaround and went and got another designer.  She told me she couldn't wait on them because she was leaving. I went to my office and collected myself and headed back out. 

As you can imagine this brought up a lot feelings.  It was all business and went pretty well under the circumstances. A God thing I felt just to show me how far I have come. 

I am ready to move on to a new phase of my life. Seeing all the pictures at service with a huge family that love each other showed me that I was grieving and it is okay to do that. If my mother had lived I would have had some version of that family up on the screen but instead I got different life. My life has been mostly good but different than I imagined it would be.  No life is perfect and pictures represent only the best moments of any life at a memorial service.  

Grief is an act of letting go of the people we have loved and the sometimes the dreams we have had for our lives. We all do our best even if it isn't good enough and we make mistakes. We have to grieve our losses and move on.   

Embracing the space - Trusting grace

There is a certain speaker that I just don't enjoy his messages seem staged to me and I usually just turn him off.  Today I randomly stopped and listened and it felt like it was a message just for me.  The topic "embrace the emptiness"

If you believe in something greater than yourself you can be open to hear or see something that seems like it is directed to you at that moment at that time. My experience with the bird this weekend felt like a gift just like today's message felt like a gift.  

I have been struggling with emptiness through the holidays. I have intentionally emptied my life over the years to find peace.  I don't just want to fill every moment just to get through it so I don't feel alone.  I have done that and it makes me feel drained and anxious.

The message today was about space in our lives to let something greater come in. It made me think of myself standing on an empty platform at a train station alone waiting for my train to arrive. I am not anxious I am peaceful knowing that shortly I will be on my way.

I feel my life has been touched by grace.  I have overcome many obstacles and in seemingly impossible situations I have been protected time after time. I know the only credit I can take for that is really just letting go and trusting that I can't do it on my own. I look back today at all the times I felt lost and empty like I have the past few weeks and know it will pass. 

The message was sent to me at just the right moment. Normally I wouldn't be home today or watching anything and again I wouldn't have been open to this particular speaker. I can accept the grace in the words "emptiness is leaving an opening for something greater than what we can imagine".

It feels awkward and for the doer in me I ask myself "what if nothing shows up and you never feel excited or inspired about life again?" Can I trust the emptiness? 

I have been cleaning out my old files at work close to 300 or more files and I have also been purging at home. This has triggered an idea that I am finished with things as they are and I am moving on. This has made me feel panic inside since I don't have a plan but today's message was for me "you don't need a plan just trust the process". 

With the pandemic everything is different we are all different. Our culture of doing seems more empty than ever and we all are just trying to feel like our old selves but that person doesn't exist anymore.  We are forever changed and maybe that is a good thing and sitting with the emptiness is an opportunity to find out what will fill us with new joy. 

    

My turkey companion - Finding Peace

Today I was getting ready to blow the leaves off in my driveway when a turkey wandered into my yard. Now I am not in a rural setting where friendly wildlife is an everyday occurrence. I decided to sweep instead of using the blower. He or she stayed out there with me for an hour standing within one foot of me. The closer I swept to her the closer she came to me. 

I thought this was amazing to have a companion while doing my chores. She had no fear and walked through my pile of leaves kicking them around. I felt at total peace the whole time seeing the true miracle of life and survival even in an ordinary subdivision where the houses are built ten feet apart. 

It ended when a woman who walks the neighborhood interrupted us she didn't even see the bird until I pointed her out.   While we were talking the bird disappeared as if she was never there. 

My holiday has been long and I wrote a few post but lost interest before actually posting them.  I have been a little low "tis the season" but I am not complaining. I have to grab the time off when customers aren't looking for me so I am grateful even if it leaves me with a lot of time in my head. 

Today I am finishing up a lot of final things on my do to list. The weather here is about 20 degrees hotter than normal and all the plants think is is spring and are blooming.  This adds to a world that already feels upside down. You can't tell what time of year it is along with the plants.  

I am okay when I just stay in my peaceful place where I just do "the next right thing" it is only when I start wondering about the rest of my life and what I want to fill it with that I get into trouble. I feel stuck and bored and wonder if I am depressed. Does everyone feel this way when they stop long enough to think about where they have been and where they are going?

Sometimes being busy just feels like I am running from something which is what I did for years missing entire decades of my life and the people in it. I want to be awake and live more deliberately.  

I am back at work full on starting tomorrow and I won't have the pain or luxury of time to ruminate over the past.  I am going to make some changes this year getting back out there virus or no virus. I need to find somewhere I can use my talents to make a difference.  My new year's resolution if you want to call it that.  Hope everyone is peaceful and enjoying the hope of a new year.