Life continues on at its own insane tempo, carrying on, yelling at you to hurry up or get out of the way. I think many of us spend our 20's and 30's just figuring out that we don't really get to set that tempo but we can decide to play along with it. We can harmonize, we can try to overpower it to force our own beat, or we can try to ignore it. As I look towards my 40's I think I'm beginning to realize that the option to just listen is also on the table.
Grief has come back into my life but it has hit deeper and in more vulnerable places in my life. I spent the last two decades of my life trying to force that tempo to my will, including any grief that came my way. I had to be stronger, harder and faster than any pain thrown my way. I was in survival mode with a side of suffering thrown in for good measure. But much like with birth and other areas - until you admit you have to accept it, you can't get through it. You can't keep avoiding it, you can't run away. Your best bet is to tackle it head on, for exactly what it is.
And so I have to admit that everything that has happened has come into my life and completely upended the entire gravitational rules of my universe. I had worked pretty hard to gain some gravitational balance. Self-care, family, love, faith, God, and giving back among a few important areas are what I focused on. And then BAM! My perceived harmonically balanced life split and shifted, spun and rotated. It wasn't all at once. No, it happened minute by minute with each passing moment from about 15 minutes before getting the news of T.
I was tossing and turning last night and the words for this post hit me so much more eloquently. Today they are a dis-shelved group of thoughts my exhausted heart and mind are trying to pair together to put some sense to it. But in and of itself, that is the perfect example of the rotation of our world. Everything has changed all while what feels like the slowest time ever. Things I used to be passionate about, have lost importance. Things I thought were important, now a complete waste of space. Friendships that were important, more delicately threaded over the events of the last few months. Thoughts that used to be important to share, tossed to the side for silence and peace. Battles that seemed like they were war worthy, dropped in hopes of quiet and calm.
And time marches on. One moment at a time. I wouldn't say I'm upset about this complete rotation of what is going on with my life and everything inside of it. At first I was incredibly upset for the changes it resulted in. I knew my life was going to have some major choices I needed to make that would effect others. That alone caused me anxiety and I was upset that I would potentially upset others I cared about. But then I remembered a night with T. At the end of the night we were talking about how and what had gone wrong with my marriage and how I had decided that I most likely just wasn't lovable. We sang multiple songs from Evanescence and Adele, giggling off and on. We purposely went off key here and there just to make the other snort with laughter. In between we had a deep talk about those feelings we felt when betrayed and hurt by those we loved. We went on to find more empowering songs, ending the night belting out A Thousand Years. Our vow to love ourselves that way and not wait for someone else to do it.
Memories with her come up and smack me in the face when I'm having the hardest moments. My first thoughts are always of my sister and her family. My heart aches even deeper piling on their pain on top of the pain the rest of us feel. I think of all the years that have come to this and I catch my breath, saying a silent prayer for the weight of agony and sadness they are under. I try hard to come up with something worthwhile, something she would have said and yet all I hear are her questions. She asked them unceasingly, much like a toddler. LOL. But with real worth. I loved spending time with her and analyzing and relating our talks to her child development course or our sociology classes. We would talk about how things paralleled in life and our emotions and songs. And this week I miss those moments.
I've just begun to have those types of talks with my teen girls and I think to myself how much she would have loved having those talks with them, too. Going from singing silly angst filled songs to talking about how society runs and what our lives do about it. I'm looking forward to many years filled with them and I have to say, I genuinely love the teenage years with them as much as I did my nieces and I'm so grateful for that gift. I'm grateful for all 3 of our teens who we look forward to spending time with and all they bring into this world and our life. I am grateful for the moments of T I see in the girls. Even if I have to blink back tears.
So, I have made changes in my life that disappointed others. And it was so incredibly hard but I was drowning. My passion for pregnancy, childbirth, surrogacy . . . My love for giving back to specific communities ... my hopes and goals for staying involved in various things that were important to me just 6 months ago - all gone. My universe demanded a fresh start, not a clean slate because the slate will never be clean. There will always be smears of the things one tries to erase. The scratched surface of mistakes will always have a scarred story to share. The dark rubbed spots of using the wrong type of chalk on it, never missing from eyesight. But there will be a new list, new pictures, new events. The slate while emptied of previous goals and thoughts and aspirations; while still acknowledging the past of the smudged past; will provide a safe space for new beginnings, new importance and hopefully new passions. A few have already found home in my heart and mind, most related to T or my family. Being home with the kids and fully being able to devote time and energy to them while always on the list is covering all the outskirts of the slate because that is where our boundaries have moved to. This family and these children are of utmost importance to us. We will grow and evolve, blend and blood as we let that navigate the gravitation forces of the unbalance we are walking through.
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