A reflection on the past 8 years from the bare basics brings to mind one important lesson. Choices. Our choices are the only control that we have on the outside world. They define everything about us and affect every aspect of our lives.
8 years ago I met three people. Those three people changed my life forever, in ways I'm sure I don't even know about yet. All of them taught me a very important lesson about myself.a
8 years ago, someone recognized that the dark flames in myself were carefully tended to and fed by one I trusted dearly. The realization shattered me.
I can trim everything down to the barest basics that life is a series of beginnings and endings. Births and Deaths. It is a never ending cycle, and it all comes down to choices.
The first ending was my relationship. I mourned my loss and my choices were impacted by those dark flames. I lost my relationship and experienced the first loss of my children. Then my son died, and the largest shift in my choices was made.
8 years ago, I kept feeding the dark flames myself, and did not see anything of value or worth. I continued to make choices which reflected how I was feeling deep inside. An unlikely event caused a shift in my focus. It was not my event, but the event of then acquaintance, now friend. She lost two of the most important people in her life in a very short period of time. I sat quietly and watched. I saw some of my past choices reflected in my friend, but I then watched her stop. She stopped, and made a conscious choice that she didn't want to feel helpless anymore. It was the most amazing and powerful thing that I've ever seen.
It inspired me to take pause, and so I did. It started with small victories. I didn't want to feel helpless anymore. At this point in time 2 of the 3 people had left my life and 1 remained. That one person always believed in me with unwavering faith. No matter what I was facing, he knew I'd come out on top. Even in failures, I still emerged victorious. With each victory a new epiphany emerged, especially those painful lessons. The more painful the lesson, the more I gleaned.
Just over a year ago, I got the biggest test of my life. My child died. I'm not going to lie. I went completely mad for 2-3 weeks. I had Dame Judy Dench narrating my life in my head. I knew I had lost my mind, but at the same time I think she probably saved my ass. She would show up when I was at my absolute worst and pondering things that were a little extreme. She would narrate it all like some story. Describing my darkest thoughts and what the likely outcomes would be. It made me pause. It made me consider my actions, and for once in my entire adult life, I made positive choices.
I could have self medicated myself to oblivion, but I knew that if I did that, I would feed those dark flames so hot, that I might melt away entirely. I had to ride this out. I had a therapist who told me during my divorce, that I had to allow myself to just feel things as they came, and when that feeling ran it's course and left my body, that it was time to let it go, and move forward.
That is exactly what I did. I screamed. I cried. I cried so hard that I couldn't open my eyes for days.
That first month I don't remember. Month two is haze, punctuated by moments of clarity, as time went on, my view became clearer. The most major choice I made, felt like a whim at the time. I took a psychic and self development class. I thought it would be a fun distraction, and if anyone was determined to talk to their missing ones, it was me.
It turned out to be not at all as I expected. It was less about talking to the missing parts of my soul, and more about the self development parts.
There were lists of questions, and I asked myself every single one. It changed my view about everything. The old me died along with my son, and a different person was born. I chose her. As winter begins to wane, and spring approaches, I feel her inside. Waiting to sprout forth, blossom, and grow. Each year she will only grow stronger. She will be nourished by her experiences, and she will continue to choose to grow and bloom.