Just when things are going along in a nice fashion, when I'm feeling happy and motivated, maybe even a week of good days, grief comes out from the shadows and smacks me down.
This time I know its trigger, but not always. And I think, 'it really hasn't been that long...', (280 days to be exact), and I think about everything that has gone down in the past year and I'm striken.
Not just because my sister died, (which has to be said out loud and written a lot so I can try to comprehend the finality of that sentence), but everything else that has made my heart continue to ache and found me questioning everything.
I realize that so much of my life has been lived with fear as the motivator, even if I had no clue that that was my operating system. Fear has insidiously been seeping into my actions so that I'm often overwhelmed and stuck and talking myself out of good decisions because of all the possibilities that I can't control.
And frankly, I'm tired of it.
When big things happen in our lives, (death, birth, moving, new job), things change and so do the people in your life. And I've always marveled at that aspect, the people that come and go, because it's never what you expect. And the curve ball that life throws your way, is really your new operating system; the chance to set new boundaries and explore new opportunities.
I used to believe that when big things happen, the person that is going through all the changes should have a 'get out of jail free' card; a pass that forgives when you've acted atrociously, dropped off the face of the earth, or just can't deal.
But that's not how life works and it's probably better that way. I'm learning how to navigate my life with more information than before. Grief is my barometer and ally.
