just keep going
Last week, I wrote a letter directed “to the Universe” about this missing bracelet. I could have addressed this letter to myself, to God, to fate, and on and on. I actually don’t use the word universe when I think of a higher power. I usually use god, especially when I pray. Though I think of god as like the collective energy of all that is and was. I think of god as all that I know and all that I could never understand. In that moment though, universe seemed to be the word that fit. I tend not to specifically talk about religion on my blog, partly because I find that there are two topics that can invite people to quickly make assumptions about another person when discussed. These topics are, of course, politics and religion. My blog isn’t really a place for me to go on about these two topics, though I do bring them up occasionally.
That said, last week, when I wrote the letter to the Universe that I posted here, I was actually crying as I wrote it. Almost a week later, I have taken a breath, of course, and see that it was just a bracelet that I lost. At the same time, I know that I deeply understood that then.
However, last week was one of those dark weeks. A week when I wasn’t doing my practice and was feeling overwhelmed by a lot of stuff in my life. I was feeling a bit misunderstood. I wanted to pour out some of the guts of life that had been stuck in me a bit. I wanted to just feel sorry for myself even knowing it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I wanted to feel sorry for myself about the last few years because I haven’t really let myself do that as much as I need to because most of the time I don’t see much point in that.
People often say, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” I can hear an adult figure, can’t remember who, saying this about a friend from high school when she lost her brother in a car accident when she had already lost her mother to cancer. I remember thinking, “that is shit” but heard it so many times that I started to think maybe it could be true. But, right here, in this moment, hear me when I say, “I think that is shit.” I don’t think it is about how much you can handle. There is no “handling” of it all, there is only breathing. You just get up and breathe. You just go to sleep and breathe. You do what you do. You can only go on. That is your only choice.
This is what I have been doing. As we approach the second anniversary of Traveler’s death, which means we are approaching the second anniversary of my grandmother’s death, which means it has been almost three years since I saw my grandmother alive, which means I will never see her alive again because she is dead, I know my only choice is to just keep on going.
I don’t mean this in a melodramatic way. I mean this as truth. And some of you are nodding as you read this and know what I mean. I don’t mean that I don’t see the beauty of my world. Hell, I find gratitude in my day, every single day, as part of my personal practice now. I see it. I know it is there. But the fact is, my life is different because I have been in the middle of this big fucking wide hole that is grief. I have sat in the middle of it, pitched a tent in it some days, chosen to take a walk around it on other days. This is how it goes. You just keep going, but that doesn’t mean that life isn’t different. You just keep going, but that doesn’t mean you have forgotten. You just keep going, but that doesn’t mean you don’t also see all the good stuff.
Last week, I was having one of those moments when I wanted to simply say, “I need to take a little rest here. This is getting too hard.” But, of course, it isn’t too hard; it is what it is.
You take another breath.
I do get that all I lost was one little piece of materialism. Yes, it is replaceable. I get it.
I am a person trying to, struggling to learn the lessons all the time. Last week, I was feeling dizzy from trying to learn all the lessons. I had spent quite a bit of time upset about how I can’t seem to learn them. How I think I am trying too hard. How I get that the lessons are there for a reason. I was finding my way back to that place where the words feel stuck in my throat because I can’t just be honest about something; instead, I have to try to package it in a way that I think will protect other people because I am so busy thinking about them and not thinking about me that when I try to say it, the words only confuse instead of explain. Last week, I was trying to work my way through it. To move forward. To find my way instead to a place where I can speak about what I really need, feel, and so on. I felt like I was spinning, spinning in circles. Sharing some of this today is an invitation to myself to stop letting the words get stuck…
As several people hoped I woud see, I, of course, see the lesson. I see the irony of losing a superhero bracelet and that, as Andrea told me when I ordered it, I had the superhero power in me before buying the bracelet. I so get it.
But really, I also get this: Sometimes something isn’t a lesson you have to learn in one specific moment in time or just because someone else really wants you to see it. Sometimes you just lose a bracelet that meant a lot to you during a week when you were already feeling really bad. Sometimes you just need to feel bad about losing that bracelet and let go of the need for a lesson in that moment. To let go of the need to please someone else who wants you to see the lesson. Sometimes you need to realize that every single moment of your life isn’t a lesson. Otherwise, someone like me, might become completely paralyzed, unable to move because of all the lessons I am trying to learn in a single moment.
Sometimes you just lose a bracelet that means a lot to you, sometimes people die, sometimes life is confusing, sometimes it gets a little dark until you find the light…and you just keep going and going.
You just keep finding your breath, breathing in and out, and you just keep going.
And you just keep seeing the lessons even when it looks like something isn’t a lesson, even when you have to admit that you know it is one.
You just keep doing the best you can.
it is what it is
Reader Comments (21)
I'm with you in that tent. Grief changes everything, right to the bone.
sometimes we gots to feel everything in order to get to that lesson.
sometimes its nice to jump off the mouse wheel and be swallowed up in experiencing the feelings.
all the time, it is good to experience all things, in their own perfect timing.
love you, just as you are.
xoxo
leonie
I just read your post with tears in my eyes hoping that I did not offend you or push some sort of suggestion upon you rather than simply just being there, being supportive. Just as friends who see each other face to face, we all manage at times to step on toes or misunderstand what someone is saying and how they are truly feeling, opting instead (often unconsciously) to look through the filters of our own situations and think we know, feel and are being helpful only to be completely wrong. I think you are an incredible woman and I'm sorry if I caused you more pain and confusion than comfort. Please know that I value you and appreciate the vulnerability in which you bring forth in this space.
kristine - just in case you read this here before reading the email i just sent you.
thank you for your words...but you did not offend me dear girl. no. you did not.
i appreciate the words you have written here in your comment...about how we do see things through our own filters. this is so true. i nod, nod my head in agreement to that.
but know that you did not offend me with your words last week. in fact, i think you totally got what i was saying...
I wholeheartedly agree. Sometimes we just need to BE. Thanks for writing this so eloquently.
There´s so much in this post, so many things that occupy my thoughts often. I have trouble believing that everything is a lesson - shit happens. There are moments when I am sure of how things work (the universe) but there are moments when I am sure of nothing except the love I feel for certain people...so "just keep going" sounds like good advice to me.
I feel kind of overwhelmed by this post. Your words, I hear them all and I just don´t have anything to add at the moment. I need to let them sink in a little, read everything again later. For now I just nead to breathe.
xoxo Sophie
Hmmm darling.
Grief can really feel like a BIG hole sometimes.
I waffle back and forth between something just happening and finding the lesson.
This was interesting to read your process.
Love you
That trying-to-learn-the-lesson-in-every-moment-thing? I COMPLETELY get that. And I completely get the need to just let it go sometimes.
And the just-need-to-feel-bad-because-you-lost-a-bracelet-that-meant-a-lot-to-you thing? Get that, too.
The best you, Liz, can do is more than good enough, my love. More than.
Keep breathing. Keep loving. Keep being your own wonderful self.
Delurking to share a poem with you! You may have read this many times before--but it came to me while I was reading your post:
My Sweet, Crushed Angel
You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.
You have waltzed with great style, My sweet, crushed angel,
To have ever neared God's heart at all.
Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow,
And even His best musicians are not always easy
To hear.
So what if the music has stopped for a while.
So what
If the price of admission to the Divine Is out of reach tonight.
So what, my dear, If you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.
The mind and the body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,
But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.
Have patience,
For He will not be able to resist your longing
For Long.
You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.
You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet,
O my sweet crushed angel.
--Hafiz
This reminds me that sometimes it's ok to just sit in the uncomfortable moments and the greif and lost loved ones and lost bracelets--and not feel like we have to DO anything to BE better people. You already ARE enough.
Dearest Liz- I so appreciate you and your honesty and your vulnerability and your sharing. I can add nothing except my support and love for you- we have a lot in common, you and I, with our grieving process...
Just breathing is the only way to get through all the pain sometimes- and even then, I find myself just basically holding on by my fingertips...
There really are no words to help with pain, only time and space. We all need to give ourselves space to heal, a loving environment full of support, not advice. I am glad that you can use this space here for your healing, Liz- sometimes it's all we got...
Dearest Liz,
I’ve read your blog for awhile and have hesitated posting until now. I’m sorry to hear that you lost such a precious memento since they always have such memories and experiences attached to them. Loss is never easy. Liz, on another note, just wanted to say ‘thank you’ for writing. Reading your blog along with so many others has been a ray of light through the dark clouds. Again, thank you.
...i feel power in this post...i hope you feel it too...
Liz,
Sometimes I wonder if I ever truly dealt with my father's illness and death - both happened at such important times in my life and I had no choice but to move on and be happy about getting married and welcoming my first child. I don't think I ever had a chance to slow down enough to really take everything in. I definitely have my moments, and I have tried to make my own sense of it. Sometimes I felt like God was giving me the most wonderful things at a time when I was also losing one of the most wonderful and important things in my life. (But why did gaining these things mean simultaneously losing?) I have seen others become angry with God because they don't understand, and I managed not to do that about my dad - at least not yet. But often when I hear of other people's losses - especially children - even people I don't know, I catch my self focusing on how I don't understand and how it's not fair. I try to keep the faith and strength, but at certain times it is so difficult. In a weird way, I am lucky that I had no choice but to keep going when my dad became ill and when he passed away. It's almost like, in a really weird way, it was better for me. But I hope I dealt with it completely and didn't escape.
Grief can take so many different forms and it is always interesting to see how different people deal with the same loss. I am the one who always tries to learn the lesson, or see the silver lining - at least he is not suffering, etc. But, sometimes it's just not that easy. And sometimes things just hit you at different times down the road. And I can see how losing something that's small in the big picture can awaken the pain of a greater loss. Or it's simply bad timing, or just plain crappy. Sometimes I feel like I am the queen of over-reacting about a small thing when it happens at the wrong moment. I know that it is a small thing, but just then I can't help freaking out. I noticed that this started when my dad first became ill. Right now I have so little time to even think about myself, that it almost seems like that happens more. Sometimes I just cannot keep my perspective - the perspective I gained through losing my father and having children. The perspective of what is truly important in life. But sometimes those little things are connected to the big things, and the frustration about something small is really about something completely different.
Okay...I just babbled. This is my first comment - sorry it's so long, but I had fun and I never really get to do this (thank goodness for long naps and giving myself time for fun!). I love reading your thoughts, Liz - I can hear you talking as I read them and that is the best part. I can't wait to have our "coffee talk" soon. :)
Love,
Bridget
I just left a long comment here, bu I lost it somehow...
I just wanted to tell you that this post spoke to me more than you know. And how so often I come here and find words and thoughts that somehow mirror what I am feeling in my heart.
Thank you for being you, and being willing to share your journey.
:)
hang in there, it really does suck sometimes to get the kick when your down, but things will change...
when I've gotten the boot from reality, I've often thought perhaps the Universe was wondering if I was paying attention... ok ok! I get it already!
hope you feel better soon.
AMEN Liz! Yes, indeed, I nodded my head through this ENTIRE post. You could not be more correct...yes there are lessons, but good god, not everything can be perceived that way...for various reasons. Sometimes things just are what they are. We would make ourselves crazy and somedays we already do that to ourselves.
I think I understood where you were coming from in last week's post when I initially read it. I understand why this was the straw the broke the camel's back, and I believe that I probably would have reacted the same way. The point was not so much about loosing the physical bracelet (although you adore it in and of itself), it was the meanings attached to that bracelet. You were upset, disappointed and a whole slew of other emotions...and you CAN and SHOULD allow yourself that space. Many times we are just too damn hard on ourselves. There are times when we are going to feel like crap, and that is what it is as well. Once we are done, we breathe, just as you say.
I don't know how elequently I am saying what I am trying to say here, but I think you will understand. I totally get you on this!
Big hugs and love
xoxoxo
Jen
thank you so much for you wise and honest words, Liz.
I love this post. I love your entire blog. I feel so at home here whenever I stop by. Like I have an amazing new friend who opens up to me so easily, just the way I wish some of my own friends and family would, and myself too -on many levels.
I know I don't comment often but I read you all the time. And learn so much from you.
My husband is going through a tough time right now (his grandmother is dying and is far away from us and he's also struggling with several other issues). I find I don't know what to do to help him but reading your words gives me some perspective. We'll just get through it, do the best we can, and breathe....
thank you
love,
Vanessa
Oh, GIRL.
this is a thought / response i have had MANy a time to the onslaught of All of the "Everything happens for a Reason" + "You are exACtly where You need to be right now" comments.
Not sO.
I was deep breathing as I read this.
I ABsolutely agree with you when you say; it's not ALWAYS "aBOUT" something (getting the Lesson). Sometimes it just SUCKS.
Sometimes it IS too hard & We gotta let ourselves fall down & WaiL it OUt. < my beliefs.
It even gets my back up when you / ppl. use the words *self-pity*. Reading the LIST of your losses in yr. letter to the Univ.>>>>>>> You have a RIGHT to mourn. To Me, this is NOT *self-pity* & it is imPORTant to DO.
It is feeling / responding to the Losses.
That is Processing.
That is how we move thru things.
this was a good thing to say:
=There is no “handling” of it all, there is only breathing. You just get up and breathe. =
here's to keepin' it REAL~
you know, I had an essence oil made up over a year ago and used it religiously every day - it was like a support. the bottle broke about two weeks ago and I panicked.... but then I realized that the breaking was the universe's way of telling me that I was strong enough all by myself - the essence had done its work
Liz, have been catching up on reading my favorite sites and also feel i owe you an apology - I did not mean my comment on your Letter to the Universe to sound blaze, anything but.