seven years ago, my life as i knew it exploded. it was an agonizing, painful decision that i take full responsibility for. in an attempt to minimize any damages, i assessed the situation carefully, i laid the explosive devices, i analyzed what the destruction might look like, i laid out a safety plan for all who i thought might be effected and then i lit the fuse.
and i made a lot of mistakes….lots. some of the areas i detonated did not fall in the way i wanted them to or anticipated them to. there were unexpected outcomes and i blamed myself for that and probably always will.
on the daily, i meditated in an effort to give myself some grounding through that time. but every time i closed my eyes, my mind would create an experience of crossing an endless body of water trying to get to the land on the other side. in the beginning, i was walking through the water in a violent thunder and lightning storm with rain pelting down so hard i couldn’t even see where i was going. every damn day i would close my eyes and that visualization would be in my head.
but i stuck with it and eventually the storm subsided and moved off into the distance. the sky was still dark and threatening but i did make it to the other side. my visualizations began to change and evolved into exploring a body of land that was unknown to me.
and i think the biggest thing that i learned from that, was not that it was blinding hard, or that i was completely untethered in dark and stormy waters or that i needed to stay focused on survival so i could get through that storm,
but i learned that our stories don’t end. that they continue on and on. and i had really kind of forgotten that in many ways. because i was so attached to the fact that my story as i had lived it, had ended.
and as we live through each change and each loss and our grief becomes many, many griefs…there is a strength in knowing that fact. our stories go on….