Beauty from Pain

"There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying." ~Sarah Dessen

What happens when you lose something in your life? If it's something small, maybe you just accept that you no longer have that thing in your life, but you can move on and live without it. But what happens when you do that with a bigger loss? The loss of a relationship, a relative, a friend. The loss of yourself. You can't just push those losses aside, place them inside a nice little container, put them on a shelf, and go on as if everything is okay. But we sure do try.

Stand strong. Get through it. It shouldn't be that big of a deal. You can go on just the same without this in your life. You don't have the right to feel so sad over a loss. It's just a loss. Ignore that emptiness.

That's what my mind tells me, at least.

I have never allowed myself to grieve a loss. Losses that go back as far as 6 or 7 years. Place them in a neat little box, tuck them far, far, FAR back in my brain, and MOVE ON. And yet, they're always there. And the next time I experienced a loss, I had to open up that container to shove the new one in and experience both the old and new losses at the same time. But losses hurt. Pain and grief is such an awful feeling to deal with and live with, especially alone. For me, I feel that grief should be an incredibly personal feeling, so I don't try to burden anyone else with it. I'm the one feeling this and everyone else around me has their own issues to deal with. But, there's no way I can deal with those problems all on my own. So I retreat, hide behind my shield, and hurt myself to stop the world from hurting me. Again.

It took me a long time to realize that my mom was, IS a loss in my life. Or having a mother, more. When I was young, my dad took more care of us than my mom did, but I'm not sure I consciously connected that at such a young age. But once it was just me, my mom, and my sister, I lost the opportunity or chance to really be a daughter. To have a mother who could take care of me. Instead, I took care of her more than she ever took care of me, at the age of 11 and 12. At an age when I desperately needed a mother to guide me into young womanhood and to let me depend on HER sometimes, I completely lost something to cling onto. But I never let myself consciously feel how great that loss was for me. There was no other way I knew how to live, so I just accepted it, disconnected from my mother, pushed away any feelings, and moved on.

For so many years after that, it seemed like everything was going perfectly. Good friends, good relationship with my father, a wonderful summer spent guiding and teaching and riding horses all day. Then, that truck hit me as I was strolling along. Not completely unexpected, but I thought I was safely out of the way. I really never let myself feel the death of my great-aunt. I think I convinced myself that since I didn't see her that often, I didn't need to grieve her death. When in fact, it was completely the other way around. I needed so much to grieve the fact I didn't have the chance I wanted to love her and spend time with her. I also never got the CHANCE to grieve. She was gone, buried, everyone seemed to move on, and no one talked about it. So I opened up that box of losses, stuffed this one inside with the other one as quickly and painlessly as possible, and moved on with my life. It wasn't that big of a deal. Except really, on a deeper level, I think it probably was. Hence why I dipped deeper and deeper, spiraling down so quickly into a life I lived as a ghost, invisible to the world and to myself. Until someone reached in and tried to pull me out.

So in that box now there are two big losses. And some smaller ones. A not so small box filled with grief and pain ready and waiting to be experienced, growing with each passing day that I ignored it.

It's so easy to pretend that you are okay. Take on the problems of others, help them deal, put on a mask, and don't let the world know that inside, you are hurting. Things seemed to be going so well, but largely it was me pretending that I was just fine, I was safe now, everything would be happy and perfect again. But there's some things you can't plan for. That freight train hits you, hard and fast, as you're standing there, never realizing you were in its path. Why are such beautiful people taken from us? Someone who loved and treasured and cherished life, who was always smiling and making sure other people were smiling as well. He grasped every aspect of life, never complaining. His beautiful laugh will be forever etched in my memory. I feel like I know there must be some reason why he's not here anymore. I don't know what happens, but there must be somewhere or someone who needed his beautiful spirit more. Not that that makes it fair. But it gives it a reason.

I miss him. I miss all of the things I've lost, but I so miss him. His beautiful spirit brightened my life. Admiring him from afar, I learned about what it meant to truly live. To not simply feel happy, but to enjoy and laugh and smile and run and do everything to fit your passions. But I never got the chance to tell him that. The chance to tell him how much I love him, how much he taught me. Until he was gone. Until I didn't know if he was listening or could ever know. I sunk down even deeper, away from emotions I felt I didn't have the right to feel. Deeper and deeper into my shield, stuffing my grief into an already overfull box.

But the pain is still there. Nothing can dull the fact that I lost him. And that I never got the chance.

I love you, Nick. Whether you know that or not, I do. You've had such an influence on my life, and I can't thank you enough for that.

Every one of us has a journey to experience, a path to walk. We think it's our path and no one else's. Admitting you need help and then accepting it is probably the hardest thing we ever do in life. We think we should stay strong and stand on our own. But, in reality, no one can travel through the labyrinth of life on their own. No one can hold all of the burdens and losses and events of a life on their shoulders and not fall down. We all need some help sometimes. But it's hard. Hard to admit you're not as strong as people think you are. Hard to show someone else how awful you feel, because it makes it that much more real.

But when it comes down to it, I need to listen to my heart. That's the true voice in my head, the one telling me how I feel. The one reminding me of what I value. The one telling me to chase after my passions, embrace my fears, and DO IT ANYWAY.

During the toughest moments of our lives, we grow the most. Pain, grief, and heartache grow our minds and soul. When we sink away from those moments, we stay stuck just right where we are, alone and hiding.

The world's a scary place. Especially when you experience a loss. But the beauty of life lies in the suffering. The beauty lies in the sorrow, in the growth, in the living and experiencing. To stay with your sadness, to ask for help, to not try to go to fast. That's real strength. To face your emotions and not hide away.

So I think now it's time to open that neat little box and make a nice mess of feelings. To feel, to live, to struggle and grow. To finally let those losses mean something in my life. To honor Nick and show him what he means to me.

I can't walk alone. I can't pretend nothing happened. And I can't expect happiness or perfection.

But I can reach for the light even from my dark space. The light is always there, waiting for me. I have faith in that. And I have faith in Nick, the shining light and beautiful laugh.

I have faith. And right now, I just have to work with what I have. Because it really is true that that's all I've got.

"Something's pure that I am missing, holding back and never letting you see. I see all the things you meant to me in the things you didn't say." ~Beth Waters

Word of the day: Faith--a trust in something

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