The First Fifty Years
I learned a great deal, at least I did once I started to examine my life and the events and people in it. Many of the lessons came with bumps and bruises to the ego, some were gentler.
I learned that forever is a very long time, and never is no shorter. When my daughter would tell me that she did not like a particular food, I said that she had to at least taste it. If she still did not like it, I said she does not like it TODAY and that is OK. As a result there is not much that she does not like. The last holdout was beets, and this year, she tasted them again and decided that she likes them TODAY. I take that with a smile and a warm spot in my heart.
When I met my SO and found him to be all that was missing in my life, I learned that there can be such a relationship in which each completes the other. The whole is more than the sum of the two parts. Suddenly, forever feels like such a short time.
I learned that we can all heal if we want or need to badly enough. When I lost a daughter at the age of five, I felt my life was over. I felt I would never smile again, but I still had another daughter and other responsibilities. For a long time, I went through the motions of living, cooking, cleaning, going to work, seeing to the physical needs of my family. Suddenly, one morning I saw the sunshine and smiled at a wee butterfly going about her business, and a bumble bee that was too damp from the night time dew to be able to take off and fly. I picked him up on a small wood chip and moved him to a sunny, but protected spot so he could dry out. Without realizing it, I had taken the first steps back to the land of the living.
I learned that I am a survivor. By putting one foot in front of the other I could survive until the open wound would scab over, and ultimately become a scar, never to be forgotten but no longer causing unbearable pain. I learned to have faith in myself.
I learned to shed the healing tears. When devastating events happen, I learned that I could talk to the trees, sit by running water, and let all the pain and grief wash over me. Cradled in the arms of Nature, I could let myself feel the full brunt of the pain, and the tears fall for as long as they wanted to. I call these the healing tears because allowing myself to shed them results in my being able to bear the pain, and come to terms with it in a much shorter time. With not suppressing or denying what I was going through, healing could begin. If I were to suppress the pain, it would come up and smack me in the face over and over again, each time, as devastating as the first.
I learned to " Be here now" . Yesterday is past and tomorrow has not yet come. I can only live in the Now. Life is so much richer when I pay attention to it.
Fifteen years into the next 50, it is shaping up to be just as challenging.
...Z
