Happy Sad Anniversary.
And what a year it has been. We have seen some shit.
Rounding a year since this sad anniversary, I’ve been taking stock of what has transpired and been -frankly- so impressed we survived it. Marking time as the years pass, as your kids, friends, family keep getting older, every year another year! Older! Yes, I know this is how time works but it surprises me every birthday. How are they another YEAR older.
Marking time is the beauty and curse of anniversaries. There’s the triumphant feeling of having made it another year, for good or bad. Here we remain. But there’s also a nominal feeling of loss. A small ache in your chest, remembering. Saying farewell to the last year. A reminder of time, tick-tick-ticking on. When the ache becomes too achey for me I listen to Waloyo Yamoni and sob for awhile and that feels like my own tiny translation of the words: If thou rainest, it is well...A torrent in flow.
Flow my torrent flow.
And here we remain. We survived it. And I suppose we are stronger, braver, more-er. We are more. And we are exhausted.
This body, and soul, have been on a journey. With some lovely milestones and beautiful moments and surprises. With watching those we love also suffer, and in that love, suffering along beside them. With some hard physical and emotional crashes, and then some breakthroughs. We’ve laughed and cried and screamed at the sky. Sometimes all in the same day.
We’ve been on the wagon, off the wagon, back on and then under the wagon, then on again – thrown off, and then run over by the wagon.
We found ourselves quitting therapy when the topics of discussion were too much to endure and our tiny self whispered we don’t want to talk about that. In what can only be described as a complete and unexpected physical revulsion to the topic, we shut down.
We’ve course corrected and un-made previously made substantial decisions, then waffled back and forth about which was the correct one in the first place.
We’ve paused to soak up some beautiful moments that were actually important. Then we returned to treatment, and therapy and were honest about why we were gone. We travelled far into our Whys, Fears, Resentments and then into our Because, Dreams and Gratitude.
We are damn fucking tired from the travel.
And so, on this sad anniversary marking an even more unexpectedly hard year, we find ourselves realizing that we did it.
We survived this last year. With marriage, relationships, career, and goals somehow still intact.
And for this we celebrate.
We really can do hard things.
We overcome this wind. Waloyo Yamoni. Rejoice. It is well.