Heartbreak, Healing, Hope

It may be a cliche‘ but we all tend to reflect on the past and the future at this time of year. This is my official post to do just that but when I sat down to write this it felt more like a run on sentence. You see the last three years have tended to run together but boil down to mostly reflect the title with each having its own header for 2020(heartbreak), 2021 (healing) & now 2022 (hope). I wanted to just focus on the past year but found it impossible because they are all three linked in a way that won’t allow me to separate them so I decided not to.

Photo Courtesy: Wix Images

The churning of time over the last 18 plus months have been an unprecedented rollercoaster with twists, turns, bumps, humps and one wild ride. When heartbreak walked in to my life in 2020 it was like a thunderbolt. It was a very unwelcomed jolt that sent me in to a tailspin of epic proportion with almost too much devastation to process at once. If you are close to a parent that passes away there is nothing to prepare you for the void it leaves……nothing. As 2020 rolled along there were glimmers of light but the debilitating nature rolled along for many months and eventually turned in to 2021 in the blink of an eye.

As the year 2021 started out the sting started to fade just a bit with capstone events that began to evolve that would fundamentally change the direction and path I not only was on but that I wanted to be on. I regained my footing in just the nick of time to recognize the beauty of the universe putting people and places in my path that would challenge me and question the way I wanted to navigate the uncertain path of life moving forward.

Sometimes when we are in the moment we don’t really realize that what is happening is going to change us in a way that will never allow us to go back to the way we were. As it turns out, it can be profound making it impossibe to go back to business as usual that provides healing in a way that we could never have anticipated. It’s almost as if you are having a slow motion out of body experience. On some level you know your direction is changing but it can take a minute to catch up to what your brain is telling you and what is really happening. As the year progressed, so did the healing nature of what was happening.

After heartbreak, healing there comes hope. For me, hope is the acknowledgement of where you are and where you want to be with an openness to drift along where you are suppose to go and let the events, people and places take you there. It is a willingness to take yourself out of a box with no boundaries and have the courage to freefall with no expectations except to set the precedent to find joy and hope in places you may never have considered. It’s expecting something more, demanding joy and not allowing anyone to steal it or make you feel less for seeking it.

My hope is not for a laundry list of things I want or things I need but rather hope that what ever comes my way I will embrace it as part of my journey and find that joy, silver lining and every other cliche’. It is my hope that I will not question or analyze but accept. I am different than I was on this day in 2020 but not necessarily for the obvious changes a pandemic brought about but for the private tragedies that brought me to a place now filled with hope after a tumultuous time spanning a portion of 3 different years.

Here’s to whats ahead……I am finally able to put a period on the end of the long 18 month run on sentence and start with a new paragraph. Ready, set, go…….

#staycurious