Today I’m grateful to keep walking, bravely running, hiking, moving, dancing, and working even as I experienced and created a magnitude of loss that sometimes takes my breath, and then I breathe again.
Inside the grieving and feeling the many feelings when you leave a place your soul LOVES, people you love, an entire community you Love, belongings you Love, a life you loved living, you get to dig even deeper into what really matters to you, deep into the willingness to create a new life, once again, with your courage, stamina, strength, and deepest commitments. You begin to have an opportunity to see the world with a heart filled with enduring compassion for the suffering of other people, the magnitude of loss others are enduring or have endured.
You deeply appreciate- like never before- the reconnection with beloved ones in your new life, and lovely new cherished friends, the unexpected kindness and generosity of many people. Gratitude floods your entire being every single day. You keep having clear moments of this teary-eyed gratitude. You keep speaking your appreciations daily. How is it I am Still Here on this beautiful planet?!?!, you might ask yourself.
Letting go does not involve just the stuff you do not need, use, or love.
Sometimes letting go involves releasing an entire life you lived and loved and searching for the lifelines-or qualities inside yourSelf that connect the previous life you had to the one you are now creating. The Non-Linear path becomes quite a disruption to the belief that life only progresses in an upward trend of better and better and BEST (an absolute untruth, BTW). Actually, life is very messy and loaded with layers of emotional responses to what Actually Happens– more than 88 of them, way beyond Sad, Glad, and Mad-the names you can give to the three blind mice.
Anchored in your deepest values and an expanding True Self, the silent Witness, the Experiencer of these many, so many different realities and experiences, you become more of the You that watches your life like an unfolding movie, scenes in a movie that sometimes doesn’t seem to make any sense. You have no clue how any of it will turn out. You just keep taking the next tiny, brave, sometimes hard step with love, for love, because of love. You keep learning about this brutiful life one direct experience after the next direct experience. In the flow maybe someday you’ll look at the whole of your life and discover the theme song of your life story and it won’t be “We’re on the Highway to Hell”, but maybe “The Rose” or “Life IS a Highway” or “Imagine” or “How We Love” or “Get Down Tonight” or “Climb Every Mountain” or “Taxi” or “I Was Here” or a whole list of songs that blend together to point to pieces and parts of your life story. Know you are the co-author, always the co-author for Love’s grace will always be the author.
Oh, thank you so much, Byron! How wonderful to hear from you and to know you are on a highway. Hopefully in the near future you can stop in for a piece of fudge! will be great to see you in person, once again! All the very best to you and Mariah! With love and gratitude, Laura
Any time we’re near Columbus we’ll stop in, Laura. And we don’t eat fudge, so… Good to see you at Bench.
Dear Laura mam, Your piece was quite a fascinating share for me. I was deeply moved by your thoughtful experience and emotions in the piece. Especially….so many different realities and experiences, you become more of the you. Anchoring our past with our journey with linear progression is what makes us wonder to be better, I guess. An absolute pleasure to read your written piece, mam.
With much love and gratitude,
Aishwariya
Thank you so much for your very kind words of insight and feedback on this piece. We become who we are from the direct experiences of our lives. I appreciate you very much, Aishwariya! With much love and gratitude for you and your thoughtfulness, Laura
Brutiful life indeed, my friend. Thanks for this reflection, I am on a highway. Have a piece of fudge for me! Yum!