Loss
Several very different scenarios involving loss recently presented themselves in my life.
(1) My grandfather just died. He was 95. As far as his spirit and mind, he had been slowly dying for quite some time now. Any notion of who "he" was had been extinguished, and in this sense his death only served as a trivial marker for the passing of a body who no longer carried the person we all associated with it so long ago.
(2) My laptop died, the thing via which I dependently draw a source of income. I was without it for large portions of time, twice in the past month.
(3) My "ex" (if you can call what we had a "relationship") moved away, during the year-long buffer of time that I steadfastly put between us, and I did not budge and hence did not say goodbye in person, just posted a short message on a going away-ish event he posted on Facebook. Absolutely _no_ regrets.
(4) I pushed the guy I was recently seeing away because of a post-traumatic reaction I had that stemmed from the aforementioned ex who moved away. I believe there was a journal post foreshadowing this several weeks ago. I tried to fix it but we both came to a point of understanding where we both agreed it would be better for us to not see each other right now, and it was for the best.
(5) One of my best friends was taken to the emergency room yesterday. She was okay but the thought of losing her definitely made me nauseous and overwhelmed while on the way over to the hospital, where I spent the day.
~
All things considered, I'm still happy, and doing very well---exuberant, even. Here's why:
(1) I didn't hold onto grandpa because he wasn't grandpa anymore. Don't hold onto things that aren't who/what they truly are.
(2) Laptops are material, emergencies of the financial nature are rarely fatal. I've got a long career/life ahead to make up for any lost days of productivity.
(3) I lived for the day my ex and I had at the beautiful Lakewood Cemetery one warm day this Spring. It was perfect, and I say without exaggerating that it was like living in an encapsulated eternity. Things were warm, spiritual, safe, overjoyed, sunny, laughing, and all the bullshit from the past and future were completely non-present. Afterward we played fun-loving frisbee by Lake Calhoun and then went to Fuji Ya for a Japanese dinner. There are several days like this that we've had, like the day I held him at the river by Minnehaha Falls and explained to him what I saw in him, and I live and love these days often. And, I let the present and future be what they will, and stay thankful for the life these days still bring to me.
(4) Important things can withstand tests. Not marathons, necessarily, but small tests of endurance. What this guy and I had wasn't important enough / wasn't meant to last right now, because there wasn't the willingness on both sides to do the repair work, but I left my arms/heart open to him in the future (I told him this). Keeping my mind/arms/heart open to things that don't need to be shut out in the future is a good thing, I've found, even if it hurts a little.
(5) The example of my friend being taken to the emergency room is the only example that is very different from all of these: my grandpa was already long-gone, the laptop is only material, my ex was already long-gone and I did _*everything*_ I humanly could to keep us together, the guy I was seeing is by no means gone from my life and I'm keeping my arms open if he decides to walk back in (which is all I can do--I can't force him / control him).......but my friend _wasn't_ already long-gone, she was _immaterial_, she _didn't_ have plans to leaving my life (she is moving but possibly only temporarily, and we'll write and visit often), and she had _no_ plans of walking away. By comparison, even though I was sure she'd be okay by the tone of her voice on the phone and knew she was in good hands, it was truly the event that most impacted me, most frightened me, most affected me. The others were actually enormously trivial in comparison.
(1) My grandfather just died. He was 95. As far as his spirit and mind, he had been slowly dying for quite some time now. Any notion of who "he" was had been extinguished, and in this sense his death only served as a trivial marker for the passing of a body who no longer carried the person we all associated with it so long ago.
(2) My laptop died, the thing via which I dependently draw a source of income. I was without it for large portions of time, twice in the past month.
(3) My "ex" (if you can call what we had a "relationship") moved away, during the year-long buffer of time that I steadfastly put between us, and I did not budge and hence did not say goodbye in person, just posted a short message on a going away-ish event he posted on Facebook. Absolutely _no_ regrets.
(4) I pushed the guy I was recently seeing away because of a post-traumatic reaction I had that stemmed from the aforementioned ex who moved away. I believe there was a journal post foreshadowing this several weeks ago. I tried to fix it but we both came to a point of understanding where we both agreed it would be better for us to not see each other right now, and it was for the best.
(5) One of my best friends was taken to the emergency room yesterday. She was okay but the thought of losing her definitely made me nauseous and overwhelmed while on the way over to the hospital, where I spent the day.
~
All things considered, I'm still happy, and doing very well---exuberant, even. Here's why:
(1) I didn't hold onto grandpa because he wasn't grandpa anymore. Don't hold onto things that aren't who/what they truly are.
(2) Laptops are material, emergencies of the financial nature are rarely fatal. I've got a long career/life ahead to make up for any lost days of productivity.
(3) I lived for the day my ex and I had at the beautiful Lakewood Cemetery one warm day this Spring. It was perfect, and I say without exaggerating that it was like living in an encapsulated eternity. Things were warm, spiritual, safe, overjoyed, sunny, laughing, and all the bullshit from the past and future were completely non-present. Afterward we played fun-loving frisbee by Lake Calhoun and then went to Fuji Ya for a Japanese dinner. There are several days like this that we've had, like the day I held him at the river by Minnehaha Falls and explained to him what I saw in him, and I live and love these days often. And, I let the present and future be what they will, and stay thankful for the life these days still bring to me.
(4) Important things can withstand tests. Not marathons, necessarily, but small tests of endurance. What this guy and I had wasn't important enough / wasn't meant to last right now, because there wasn't the willingness on both sides to do the repair work, but I left my arms/heart open to him in the future (I told him this). Keeping my mind/arms/heart open to things that don't need to be shut out in the future is a good thing, I've found, even if it hurts a little.
(5) The example of my friend being taken to the emergency room is the only example that is very different from all of these: my grandpa was already long-gone, the laptop is only material, my ex was already long-gone and I did _*everything*_ I humanly could to keep us together, the guy I was seeing is by no means gone from my life and I'm keeping my arms open if he decides to walk back in (which is all I can do--I can't force him / control him).......but my friend _wasn't_ already long-gone, she was _immaterial_, she _didn't_ have plans to leaving my life (she is moving but possibly only temporarily, and we'll write and visit often), and she had _no_ plans of walking away. By comparison, even though I was sure she'd be okay by the tone of her voice on the phone and knew she was in good hands, it was truly the event that most impacted me, most frightened me, most affected me. The others were actually enormously trivial in comparison.