Today I'm sharing a journal entry I wrote last July. I always like to go back and reflect on what I've written. It's incredible how much things can really change over a year, a few months and even days. It is true that all things pass. But it is not just time that allows things to pass, it's what you do in that time. Writing for me helps a lot with this process, it's a place where I can safely unload everything, and it allows a little bit of weight to be lifted off my shoulders. It often doesn't fix anything, but I really do get a small sense of relief after. And looking back at it all makes me appreciate just how far I've come, because it's often hard to recognize that.
This post is about anxiety, something that never really impacted my life until after losing Isabel. I can't say that I don't have anxiety anymore, but I'm having less of it, and I have learned how to manage. July 2016: I am sitting here by the window, it looks beautiful, the sun is shining right on me. But I don't feel beautiful inside, I feel empty and anxious. I'm waiting for an appointment to adjust my return to work schedule again, it's just not working. I also need to talk to a professional again, now that things have changed, and I'm finding myself dealing with new issues. I need help organizing all these new thoughts and anxieties. I feel like every week I come into work I am so emotional and want to cry. It's a feeling that I can't control. I don't know what it is. I'm comfortable enough being there now, but doing the work that is supposed to be really easy for me, is proving to be so hard. It shouldn't be this hard. I can't remember anything anymore and I'm really struggling with finding my rhythm again, I guess this is life after loss. I'm easily confused. I'm having trouble with my memory. And I cannot concentrate. I've never really felt anxiety like I have these past few weeks, I've felt anxious many times, but nothing like this. It's terrible and I wish it on no one. Sometimes it just gets me, it hits me from behind without me knowing, my heart starts beating faster, and I can't think. I don't know what to do. I know where and when I feel safe, but I don't know how to get that feeling when those options aren't available. I crave for easy, I crave for how easy it was before. I can't manage my time, my thoughts are so unorganized, and I can't figure out how to get myself back, or at least the parts of me that I need back.
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Why do humans need so much to live? I've learnt that we really don't need a lot to be happy. However, most of are continually searching for new things to fill this purpose.
We are of the animal species, and most animals really only need three things: food, water, and shelter to live. However, as humans we have grown to love and feel as if we need so much more. The latest best thing of anything we desire, new and better is always top of mind. Fixing and reusing however, may not be. Why buy an old house to fix up and love all the hard work you put into it, when you can build a new one with everything you want? Why buy an old car when newer ones have all the cool gadgets that can take our attention away from safe driving? Why buy used clothes, when you can buy new ones for the same price that are usually of much cheaper quality? So many questions, but all we are doing by adding new things to our life is complicating it in so many other ways. After losing Isabel, I started finding it really hard to purchase things, I tried hard to find a valid reason to add more to my already complete house. It was a difficult but good experience for me. A really silly example I clearly remember: I wanted to replace my old ratty dollar store paper towel holder that we inherited from Beilal's single years with a much nicer one, but I thought over and over about this silly little thing and found it hard to justify. The old one will just end up in the garbage I thought, and that's not helpful to the landfills. And although it is no excuse, in my time of grief I was trying to find more beauty to add to my home, and as silly as a paper towel holder is, it actually did add more beauty, but I put a lot of thought into it, as you can see. I purchased a beautiful brushed nickel metal holder with a bird on top, a symbol very close to my heart. Grief makes you do funny things and second guess everything all at the same time, but now that my mind is a little more clear, I would like to try and reduce my accumulation of unnecessary items and really purchase or add things to my home that add value and meaning in some way and that I won't need to throw out someday. Around the same time as purchasing the paper towel holder, I also put up a photo wall, and started an indoor plant collection, both things that I feel a strong connection to and that bring more love into my home than what was there before. Living in Toronto for a few weeks in a small space with a lot less has taught me some important things. It is much easier to tidy and clean a smaller place. You have less, therefore you spend less time doing things you would typically do in a larger home with more stuff. I have less dishes, less clothes and less toys here. The machines are smaller, so laundry loads are smaller, done quicker and we just keep wearing our clothes over but in different ways. We are washing dishes by hand because there are so few and we need to use them again, and less toys around means getting more creative with different ways of playing. This week Ethan helped me peel carrots and loved playing with the peelings, he filled a cup with them and pretended he was making something for dinner too. Having less to me means living more. More time for everything else, more time for life, more time for what actually matters. Becoming vegan strangely has taught me so much about living differently, and not just in how it relates to food and animals, but in all aspects of my life. And losing Isabel opened all these doors for me. I miss her dearly and would give anything to watch her grow up with me today, but what her loss brought me is unique and extraordinary beyond explanation. Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist and author wrote in her book "When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times", that when things fall apart we begin to develop true compassion for ourselves and everyone else and that this is how seemingly ugly, problematic and unwanted things actually become our teachers. She says that pain and pleasure are inseparable. They can be celebrated. They are ordinary. Birth is painful and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Both of which I have experienced. "Everything that ends is the beginning of something else", and for me that something else is this new life, and understanding that, "Pain is not a punishment, and pleasure is not a reward." She talks about death and says that we are raised in a culture that fears death and hides it from us, but yet it's happening everyday, everywhere. Getting old, getting sick, losing what we love - we don't see these as natural occurrences, but they are. Life is always changing. And things are always in a state of death, but as a society people always want to ward off death, no matter what. When we have reminders of death we panic, she says. But relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, and that everything changes, is the basic message of life. No one will ever get to a point in their life where they have it all together, that is unrealistic she points out. We may have periods or moments in our lives where we feel this way, but we shouldn't strive to maintain this, but instead go with the waves of life to wherever they take us naturally. I could quote her entire book, that is how beautiful the messages are. And so, just like this post began as a post about minimalism, but morphed into something completely different, let life morph into what it naturally wants to. Let go of control and let life happen to you. And lose the stuff, it will help this process. Peace & love. |
DeannaFinding love after loss and learning to enjoy the simple things.
July 2018
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