How I am doing.....

It is winter outside but not yet the winter of my grief. It’s amazing to me how many feelings my heart can hold simultaneously. It feels like an emotional shit storm  at times. In my heart there is much grief over the transition of my relationship with my partner and with Kyle. It usually hangs out quietly but then at times it hits me like a sneaker wave and suddenly my eyes fill with tears that I desperately try to blink back.  

So much change has a way of throwing me off kilter. In three weeks I must pack my entire life into boxes to be stored for a few months while I travel and stay with my parents.  Three weeks in which I must also manage the holidays with family and get a mountain of work done at my job so that I can feel good about leaving the country for three weeks.

In the midst of all of this change and emotional turmoil blooms a precious new love. Like a lotus flower pushing its way through the murky pond to explode in its pretty white splendor, my new love has a way of pulling me from my melancholy and out into the light.  There is a warmth in my heart that my new love has kindled that is so lovely and constant.

And yet, I know that it is not wise to rely on anyone or anything but myself to ease my heart ache.  I do not want to use the distraction of my new love to be an escape from my grief. So I will choose to set aside space for my grief, space for my overwhelm. Space to do what I do best which is to face my feelings, to fully feel them, so then I can move through them and not push them aside to fester.

And so this year, these holidays, may not be the jolliest for me. I am skipping all of my traditions, not going to hear In Mulieribus, missing the zoo lights and The Revels, not putting up a tree, not going to The Grotto. I am skipping out on most social events, choosing instead to spend time with only a few people in quieter settings. 

I don’t say this so people will be sad for me.  I think this is the right choice, the healthy choice. I do not need cheering up, I need friends who can just patiently sit with me.  I am honoring my grief in the way that works best for me. I am keeping my center, staying true to myself, being honest and authentic and loving. I am allowing myself to feel happy and to laugh and every day I find a reason to laugh and smile.

Every day I find something beautiful. This morning it was the gorgeous sunrise on the way to work. In the last hour it was a message from my beloved friend Molly that read, “Loving is where you start and end.”

So if you ask me how I am doing I can honestly say I am doing well, because I have so much love. I am so blessed.