I’ve been absent from this space and I have missed it. Not an intentional break. Not a holiday. Not a ‘working on myself’ break. No sabbatical for me. I have been absent because life seriously got in the way. Seriously fucking in the way and the words had to play second place. Something had to give.
There has been so much I have wanted to say and I have sorely missed this space. I have missed the pouring of words through me onto this page. I had so much I wanted to write about. So much that needed to be curved and moulded into words… but much of it wasn’t my story to tell so I left the pages vacant and wondering. What is mine to tell simply cannot be told yet. It needs to shift and simmer in me a while yet. It needs to soften so that my words do not pour out in an angry wounding diatribe.
2018 has been a year that has hit me and those close to me hard. Really hard. It didn’t shape up the way I would have liked. The story, if could have written it, would have been different. It would be filled with blossoms, sweet summer nights and words from a novel fit for the romance shelves. I certainly wouldn’t be watching my daughter traverse the time and space of unimaginable grief and immense loss. As graciously and bravely as she is doing it, it is not how I would have written the story. I would not have held her, broken and weeping, as she said goodbye to her beloved Matthew moments before they turned off his life support. No. That is most definetly not how this story was supposed to go. It is not how anyone’s story is supposed to go.
I would not be swimming against the anger and grief of my own story. The words that bubble up for that may possibly never be written here. There is a saying ‘the thing you are most afraid to write, write that’. One day maybe, one day.
Through it all I have taught, run the business and done human things. The stuff that just is and the stuff that just has to be done. We do that. We make our beds and show up the best we can. We clothe ourselves, conceal our broken parts and go out into the day with the bravest heart we can find.
I did my best to get on my mat every day. Moving my body so that the energy of trauma and sadness can move through me and not make a home where it is not welcome.
The ability to show up to teach even when it felt impossible has kept me grounded and humble. The human connection that comes at times of loss and grief never failed to move me and I am grateful to each and every one of you. My close friends listened (and continue to do so) endlessly to my stories. They called and they showed up. They bought me coffee. They drove me where I needed to be at silly hours of the night. They let me overstay my welcome and checked up on me when I went quiet. These are really good humans.
I will be eternally thankful for these good humans.
nikivanvelden 