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First of all, thanks for all your kind wishes and congratulations on my 14 years of sobriety yesterday. It was really great getting all those cyber hugs! :grouphug:
but today I am dealing with loss and want to share my experience, both as a cathartic and in hopes it may help some one else
Today I am dealing with three losses a) My dear friend and ex lover who I found out yesterday passed over last Friday b) the loss of alcohol c) the loss of my business/store
First let us start with my dear friend/star brother. He was only 63 and died while doing what he loved the most, kayaking a white water river. as best they can figure he had a small stroke, lost control of his kayak and drowned. He and I had a connection from the first time we ever spoke. our relationship was close in so many ways in spite of us never getting married. we lived together for several years and I left him in my early sobriety, something we both regretted at times over the years for "what might have been" After the breakup we stayed close and I am grateful he spent several weeks at my house last year before moving to Hawaii
Second, alcohol. In spite of my joy and gratefulness at my years of successful recovery, no alcoholic really ever fully recovers from the siren song of the quick fix alcohol gave us for the many years. Intellectually I understand, emotionally is another matter
Finally, my business. Yesterday was the last shift I am working at the store. It will close permanently on 3-17-06 and my dear husband is doing the final few days to shut down.
so as you can see, I am dealing with a triple whammy of loss today. How? firstly I name it. Just naming the emotion begins to take the power out of it. I recognize and respect the fact I am grieving. I give myself permission to be sad and angry and frustrated and to weep :cry:
I remember the good times and don't beat myself up over the failures. I feel the feelings, good and bad. I honor and nurture my need to heal. I pray. I thank my guides and angels for their support. I tease my friend on the other side about his adamant belief in life that there is no "other side" and I know he gets it now that he's actually there cuz I can feel his presence :rofl:
so the bottom line? I'm OK and I'm grateful to have the tools, the faith and the emotional clarity to live my human experience in all it's permutations. Grief and loss, joy and celebration, they are the same coin and each would be poorer without the other.
thanks for reading this far if you did and blessings to all of us as we inhabit this world in all it's bittersweet beauty and awesome glory. Give yourself permission to be human, to be frail, to accept help and to have the strength to be ALL that you are!
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