When things fall apart...embrace it

I  started thinking about the ways in which we deal with loss more recently then I ever had before. I believe now that 'things' whatever they may represent are not guaranteed to last; 'things' can be defined as anything you would miss once its gone.  We are not taught as a society or as individuals to actually deal with loss at all in any form. Its brown bagged, its hidden, its ignored, its thought of as a taboo subject. Shedding skins and losing things is so personal so estranged from our lives that when in fact it, the loss, happens to us or a succession of losses happens, which is more of the case than the latter we are crippled emotionally and supported by those around us into the avoidance of the emotions associated with the loss or losses. 

When I first started losing things a few years ago I kept ignoring the reasons why and the emotions of the loss it just felt like too much. The advice I received was more annoying than it was helpful.  I guided myself through the mourning of losing my home and all it stood for, I felt the grief of love lost when in one day my dogs and partner moved out. I felt raw, wounded, and crazy even. How could all of this have happened?

When I look back I feel relief, I was trapped in a life I never wanted to have I was going through the motions I was not really living I wasn't embracing life. I was fearful.The life I wanted was the opposite of what I had so losing it taught me so much about who I was and who I was becoming, that now I am grateful for the experience. So the 'loss' was a shedding of the skins of society's pressure: house, kids, BBQS, and  noodle salad.  When things fall apart when they fell apart for me,  what it felt like was the sky was falling around me I felt alive I was learning the most important lesson in  life. That life is a full circle that what you really want happens when you think it wont that you can make it happen. I remember always feeling trapped and stuck, tired of being typecast and labeled it was a slow agonizing death for me. The life I dreamed of was of this woman who traveled and read, who took chances and felt the freedom of dancing, of kissing hot strangers who laughed and wasn't afraid to be who she really was.

When I finally let go of the loss the albatross I carried around with me a calmness fell over my shoulders like a warm blanket I realized that losing things is the same as gaining them it wasn't about the separation  of gaining /losingthe separtion never existed it was a false perception.The profound moment the realization that they are the  same the ebb and flow the tides of life when you let go of the tragedy the real truth comes out and life becomes free life becomes amazing life will always be full it will always be  both and when you embrace loss you gain things.

"Marcel Proust probably one of the greatest writers since Shakespeare. He gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? total waste. Didn't learn a thing."

So we can be happy no struggles no loss never evolve or learn anything about those around us or more importantly ourselves. or we can embrace life with the struggles the loss the fear the love the whole viscous circle and live really live unobstructed by the periods of uncertainty. 

I suppose I continue to choose the whole life: the uncertainty, the pain, the struggles,  the greatest loves, and  the most intense life possible. Why not the pendulum swings both ways.