“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. The last time I wrote about grief my partner had lost their closest grandma, aunt, and great aunt in the span of three months. One after another. Happening in threes as the saying goes.
This time I write about grief, it’s around the anniversary of my mom's death. These past three years have been very hard in our lives, but this last year just tore me to shreds and left me more lost than a navigation system. The process has been..well.. a process. Frankly I haven’t been able to continue with life the way I used to. All the things about "being optimistic" and "seeing the beautiful" that I ever learned about life I learned through my mother, and now with her absence I can’t seem to find the silver linings in the clouds anymore. I still stand by what I wrote before about death itself being easy. I’m not really sure if death was easy for my mom because as much as I tried to stay awake by her side, the long sleepless nights took over and I fell asleep. I woke up to my brother trying to wake her up as her blue eyes stared in my direction. I still remember thinking to myself how my mom’s body wasn’t my mom and how her soul/spirit/or whatever you’d like to call it had departed. How easy is it to disassociate when you realize all that a person ever was, is the soul behind the eyes. Once that soul is gone the life that was once there is gone as well and you realise that is was all that ever was. Going through the grief process now I can definitely say with certainty that what plagues my mornings and my nights is the coulda-shouldas. The years I wasted chasing the wrong things or wrong people. The numerous times I wasted being a petulant spoiled brat. The opportunity’s missed. The days lost. The coulda-shouldas. I think that my description of grief would be just like this: Grief is regret of the possibilities that will forever be absent in one’s life all the while the love that still exists has no where else to go except through tears of desperate pleas for one more time to say “I love you”. The three most basic words any being ever wants to hear with the most honest and pure energy ever felt. It’s been a year but each day feels like eternity of loss. I once heard a saying from Nelson Mandela telling Oprah Winfrey about “the legacy you leave behind are the peoples lives you have touched.” How fortunate was I to be created and raised by a mother who understood life and did her best to show me every aspect of it. I hope during the course of this transitioning moment in my life I can show people through her work just how special she is, or rather was. I took all her work and compiled it, but I think I’ll never reach the years with the amount of work she has. She was a beautiful soul she was my light in life, I just hope she still shines ever so brightly in spirit.
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 Grief comes in various forms; however, the most relevant form, is loss. The loss of an idea. The loss of a love. The loss of an identity. The loss of someone. In order to have such loss there has to be an end; be it an end to a life, an end to a job, or an end to a season. Whatever “the end” is, it is the end. It’s done. It’s finished. That is it. No more. The end, by appearance seems so simple, so straight forward, sans complexities. Yet, with all it’s simplicities, the end seems to be the most complex and most difficult to overcome for any individual. The end is somewhat, and maybe, at most times, the most soul destroying, the most defeating, and perhaps, the most catastrophic for any individual. So, then, lies the question of what exactly is the end? In it’s simplicity “the end” is the mere termination, cancelation, conclusion of a “subject”. The “subject” as I will present throughout can be a person, a project, a dance, the list can go on and on. Therefore, what exactly is the reason why all these emotions are conjured up in one’s indelible soul? Why such attachment to something, that in its core, is so simple to which the subject undergoing such “ending” does not feel “the end”? After further self-examination one begins to discover that yes “the end” is simple. The complexity of the end only lies within us. Our doubts. Our shadows. Our regrets. Our past. The “coulda” “shouldas” “woulda’s” and the “maybe if I’d have…” , fill in the blank. The ending isn’t so detrimental to the subject. The subject just ends. The subject just finishes. The subject lives it’s season. As a result, the only conclusion could be that we mere humans, as selfish as we all are, make the ending about our own self. "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, We take the time, when an ending occurs, to reflect on the things we didn’t do. The things we could have changed but were complacent. The days we could have spent, yet wrote it off as a tomorrow job. The words we missed out on saying. The hugs we should have given.
The end is our reminder to reflect and once we do, we realize, we messed up. We realize we can’t go back. The door has shut behind us. No matter what we do it won’t open again. No abra kadabras possible here. Once this stark reality hits, this is when we grieve. I might dare say, this is when we grieve our own self. We don’t grieve the subject that is “ending” because what is there left to grieve, it’s done. In a matter fact way of saying it, the subject is done, nothing else to discuss. We grieve our own self because in some small measure, we grieve our own capability of realizing the present we had and the foolishness of claiming an ending would never occur. Life is a season. We see it every day. We are taught that everywhere, well as far as I’m aware of. We grieve because the absence of the subject, is our daily reminder of our lack of attention to that of which we had. How, then, can someone heal a wound of stark realization when salt is continuously poured upon our scars? You move forward, with baby steps; but you move forward. Each day that passes you put one foot in front of the other and you realize just how lucky you are to put that one foot in front of the other. You move forward with the baby steps, and you realize that you can either wait again for another “ending”, the ending that send you into a deep, deep reflection, or you can make sure when an “ending” does arrive, you are ready. You are ready because you realized just how lucky you were to put one foot in front of the other. You are ready because you realized that now is the right time to say that one thing you couldn’t find the right time for. You are ready because you realized that when you have reached your final destination, it’s better to leave the tank empty than wonder of all the other places you could’ve gone. Grief isn’t easy, it’s tough; and, although people aren’t easy on themselves, they suddenly realize just how tough they truly are once they flow through grief. Grief is a moment, and it too shall pass.  Be present.
That’s it. That is the one resolution for the year. Call it laser focus. Call it meditation. Call it the force, or zen. Whatever you call it, at the end of the day it is an action that requires no action. Being present requires no extra costs, no additional add-ons, no plug-ins, no fees, it just requires a resolve. A resolve for improvement. A resolve for connection. A resolve to be aware of your beingness that is you. Simple, sure. Easy, hell no; which makes this next statement a tie-in to the above. Step-by-step, second-by-second, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month. Presence is an ever-constant flux that always provides the opportunity to be present, yet again, if one resolves to. There are various discussions that could take place here. One could say the simple pursuit of presence is in itself not being present, which is, of course, a valid point. However, having these types of discussions would then itself lead to the individual not really being in the present now, wouldn’t it? Ah, existentialism. So vague. So simple. Yet, so complex. Regardless of this or that, one thing we can all agree upon is that we have all come to the conclusion that the here and now is what we have and can, in some way, guarantee. Plans, dates, the future, all seems but a figment of the imagination as we recover from last year. We previously got so wrapped up in the doing that we forgot how to be, as some of the life coaches would say. We forgot who we are, what we can do, and our talents that we hid because we had “no time” to pursue them. We forgot the importance of our social circles, whoever those may consist of. We learned that a hug can mean so much and a smile can lighten the mood. We learned to express ourselves differently. We learned a house could be a prison or it could be a place of rebirth. We learned that distance means so little when someone means so much. We learned many of things, but overall, we learned that no one knows what will happen tomorrow or the next hour or the next second. So as we go bravely continue into this new year, stronger than the person we were before, let us remember to stay present in all that we have in front of us. Let us remember that the now is all we are given. Everything else doesn’t exist…yet. #BePresent #HappyNewYear #Isadoraland #WildIsadora  As the days become shorter and the breeze turns into a chill, we hang up our white pants, store away our barbeques, empty the pool, and weed the garden one last time before cleaning out the gutters and raking the leaves.
We get ready for the hot Pumpkin Spice beverage, or dessert, that reminds us of busy family reunions, crazy holiday events, double booking of calendars, and our Christmas list for our Black Friday shopping. We get ready for the rodeo of the holidays and in the process become a little kinder to our neighbors, our brethren. In some ways we become more in tune with the human spirit. As the bikini tan lines fade and are replaced by a beanie or scarf tan line, we gear up for what is to come. We get the “boots with the fur” out, the capes or the twill, and transition our lives with the seasons, bracing for the transition to occur. Not knowing what to expect. Not knowing what can be done. Not knowing. Yet, we believe, or at least we try to believe, that the next few months will be better than the rest. We believe in the peace, the tranquility, the calm. We believe in the unity, transformation, and the evolution of our characters. We believe, yet, rightfully hesitant, in resolve. Despite it all, our beliefs, the complexity, the uncertainty, everything that is presently occurring, the one beautiful constant that remains is the consistency of seasons. The seasons of our lives. The seasons of the earth. The seasons that remind us of the ever constant transitions that are constantly occurring. A consistency that is greatly appreciated during these times of inconsistency. So whenever you wonder how this year will end or what tomorrow will bring. Whenever the anxiety of what may be or happen permeates through any positive thought. Just have a look outside and look at the season you are in. Have a look and remember, whatever is happening inside or out, this too shall pass and just like the bud that finally decided to blossom, you too shall blossom no matter the season. #Seasons #Autumn #WildIsadora #Isadoraland  Every year we all make resolutions.
We sit down, map out our lives, and plan an ideal year that would include a shift within us. Some form of change. Some form of newness. Some progressed version of ourselves. A deep desire of change and progression that lies within us, begging to come out to express itself, attached to a resolution made the night before a new year. I used to follow those resolution commitments and like everyone else failed halfway through January. As a pre-teen, I would sit down and envision a better life that I wanted and occasionally accomplished a couple of these resolutions by December. Most of my resolutions consisted of basic everyday functions, which should be achiveable by the time you are an adult. Feeling defeated and not progressing in my life, I cried my sorrows of living a “purposeless” life to my mother. My mother listened, ever so patiently, to her teenage offspring, tilted her head, and said in the most loving voice, “My darling, you have so much life to live, even if you mess up, you still have years to recover.” As I looked at my mum thoroughly confused at what the hell she was talking about, she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “On this piece of paper I want you to write down 1 to 100.” After writing the numbers down, my mother looked at my paper and said, “You see these numbers, This is your life…” she paused for dramatic effect before continuing, “…and this is the life you lived,” she said as she started crossing out some numbers. “The rest of the numbers are what’s left to live, if you live your life right.“ That lesson had such profound effect, that ever since, I have attempted to be intentional my with my thoughts, with my words, and with my actions. Easy to say not so easy to do. As I started to be more involved with sports throughout my teenage years, I started learning and applying the art of goal setting and within months improved my performance. I don’t know why, but I never applied those skills to my life until I was much older. I started reviewing my goals every year and reaching them. Then, I started learning and reading more about goal setting that I started reviewing my goals every month. Then every week. Then every day. Constantly reviewing progress and performance, as well as identifing areas of improvement. Which brings us to now. After taking a mini break from social media in an effort to detox from the events of this year, I decided to reflect back on the first half of 2020 and all the hopeful resolutions I made before this year started. Some resolutions have been resolved. Some are still in progress. Some, well…yeah. Overall, what I have gained in my reflective process is that we all have a voice. A voice that may be small, but yet can still achieve. A voice that vibrates an expression of our inner desires. A voice that can be expressed through various mediums, whenever applied with intense focus. A voice that can become a roar when amplified by other voices. A voice that is the auditory translation of your soul. So, express your voice however you like. Be it via social media posts, protests, silent protests, loud protests, abstaining from protests, reading about fake news, being a part of fake news, whatever you can. Just remember, your voice has value. Make sure whatever expression you choose, reflects your values. #Reflections #SundayReads #LiveYourDreams #Isadoraland |
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