It has been over a year since I have written. That’s a long time for me. I don’t set aside time for writing, it has just been something I do when the mood strikes. It’s easy for me to write this way because the thoughts are there ready to go. In the back of my mind, I have been aware that I haven’t written anything much for a while, but I didn’t realise it was so long. I have thought about why, and the truth is the words just haven’t been there.
The past year or so has been tough for the world. I’m not used to living with so much uncertainty, and to be honest I don’t think I live with it well. I like plans. I like to know what I’m doing. Not in a crazy rigid way, just that I like to mentally have an idea of what’s ahead for me. Making plans has been difficult over the past year or so because our plans can be flipped upside down at a moments notice. I have had to learn to adjust and just deal with what I need to and let the rest go a bit better. My ideas of a successful day have changed because it can’t be measured in the same way, and that’s ok.
I lost my sister to cancer at the end of last year. It has been six months without her. That six months feels too long to have not had her with us, but also too short an amount of time for life to go on in a relatively normal way. I miss her every day. I walk past pictures of her in my home and smile but feel a pang of sadness. I have realised it’s possible to both miss someone immensely and still be happy at the same time. My joy in life is not robbed by my grief. I didn’t realise that was possible.
There are parts of the past year that I would have to call “challenging”, but they have really made me think about my own life more. We all know that life is full of ups and downs. We tell ourselves this when we are in the middle of a “down” because it makes the “downs” more bearable knowing an “up” will come again. A part of me has learned to embrace the “downs” a little more. I know one day I will leave this life and when I do, I want to be able to say;
“I experienced so much. Some of it was amazing, and some of it was so hard, but boy did I live! That is what I came for, I came to experience it all.”
In my 37 years, I have experienced joy, exhaustion, love, friendship, sadness, frustration, worry, excitement, grief, embarrassment, surprise, and loss. I have had days where I wake up so excited, and nights where I lose sleep because my mind is burdened. I have felt pain beyond what I ever thought I could endure, and felt love with such completeness. It’s cliched to say this, but even though I hate the periods of struggle and pain in my life, it is in these times that I have learned who I really am deep down. Sometimes I learn something about myself that I don’t like, other times I’m pleasantly surprised. It is raw, and sometimes ugly, but it’s real.
I don’t know if I can say I am grateful for the past year and it’s challenges, but I know that I am grateful I have been able to experience another part of life and when my time is over I know I will be so thankful I got to truly experience what it means to really LIVE.
