Monday, March 15, 2010

Loss Changes You

Life is less now. After losing my husband, I've been stripped, not bare, but scraped and whittled away in places. Edges carved. Excitements dulled. Expectations muted. Passions calmed.

I would like to say that I am a bigger person after going through the loss of my husband, the loss of the best person I ever knew. What I feel is that I am actually a smaller person, as if in losing my partner I am left with some portion of what I became when we were together. With the disappearance of this good man from this earth, my understanding of random misfortune leaves me hollow, my insides scooped out. Anything can happen at any time, good or bad, no matter what you do. I am less attached. Emptiness comforts me. Nothing cannot be lost.

My life has become quieter. I find kindness in less of everything.

My home, my own space, is solidly here. When I come in from the cold, the door closes on known territory. I can breathe deeply from the inside. As if for the first time in my life, I embrace the desire to turn inward.

Why write about loss, you ask?

Every time I do, I find out either where I'm going next or where I am now; the destination keeps changing. At the moment, I'm going nowhere. I'm staying right here. I am not lost.


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How has loss changed you? Write about it.









2 comments:

  1. "You've suffered a very severe loss ... I won't say that you'll ever get over it, because you never will get over it ... you will need to find ways to absorb it into your life. To make a place for it in the meaning of your life as it unfolds."

    ~ what the psychiatrist says to the character Rafe in a book whose title didn't get written down in an old notebook

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  2. this is gorgeous. and my heart breaks for you as I read the words because you really do make me understand exactly what you mean...I feel like I can not comfort you I have never found such a love in my life. Perhaps that is my loss?

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