The other day I went on an adventure outside in my back yard. I sat down on the grass and smelled the ocean during meditation and it brought me back home. Back home when everyone was still Earthly present. Back home when I felt like a kid and had a supportive family and great friends. It brought me back to moments of my grandmother's knitting, my grandfather's piddling in the garage, my uncle's lessons on handwriting and my aunt's great cooking! It carried me through each memory and gently let me remember, but also showing me the harsh reality of forgetting what their voices sounded like. How I wish things were different, but absolutely being grateful they were mine.
The adventure left me sobbing for the grief that I've let myself feel again, this many years later. Baka (grandma) died in 2002, Eko (my nickname for my uncle) in 2008, Deda (grandpa) in 2010 and Strina (aunt) in 2020. It's been a painful road and each passing felt unreal because I have not been to any of the funerals. The interesting thing was that grief for each person felt new, as if I was feeling it for the first time. It's strange what kind of process grief has, because in my experience, you never truly get over anything. You just transmute it to mean something different, to hurt a little differently but not project onto others.
Life is hard, y'all and whatever you have been through in life has brought you here. You haven't been through what you have been through to just get here though. There's more to see, more to travel, more joy to discover and more love to give. Because, isn't that the whole point? I know you must be thinking what woo woo shit is this now, since self-care is a commercialized retreat instead of a given right, but hear me out. Life is meant to be lived in community, with others who love and care for you as you do for them. For the path of communication, creativity and life force to flow both ways. And in community is when
You are not supposed to have it all figure out- no one does. You are not supposed to do it alone- many of us have at least one. You are not supposed to know everything- which means you share knowledge and find people who are capable of the things you seek. Same as they do- which inherently means there is something in YOU that is needed by someone else. That's that magic woo woo shit some of us are talking about. It's the medicine and wisdom that you have inside you if only you were quiet enough to listen, and still enough to hear.
Toodles! I'm going to go thank a tree for letting me breathe another day.