The Song Remains the Same

People keep asking me how I’m doing, and my reply is always the same. “I’m fine, thanks for asking”. Only a select few people know me well enough NOT to ask me that, and for them my thanks burns bright.

I had to deal with the unexpected death of a loved one, which resulted in a complete recalibration of much of my own perspectives and thoughts on things. Death is such a dirty ninja, sneaking in where least expected. I expected it to be hard - what I didn’t expect was coming to the understand that you’re never really “over” the loss of the person you cared about. The pain exists like a constant refrain bouncing through the walls of an old empty house - sometimes it’s so faint as to be not heard or felt, other times it crashes into you with an almost physical intensity; a sudden gut-punch that leaves you breathless and shocked and shaking.

I think because of what happened, and also because of the general sense of self-awakening that I’ve had over the past several months, I have found myself irrevocably changed as a person. God, it sounds so cliche to write things like that - let alone think or believe them. So I’m not going to wax poetic about my great metamorphosis and all that. I just sit here knowing that I’m filled with a deeper sense of self and internal peace than I’ve ever felt before, and some of that is due to that chorus of hurt that is now part of my own personal soundtrack.

I don’t like dwelling on unpleasant things, and I usually feel that sadness is a weakness - but I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about this loss, and this sadness, and what it means for my life. I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t mean anything. People live, people die, the world spins onward. My takeaway was that I have spent so many years being so damn scared - of life, myself, other people, rejection, failure, hurt, anger - and that it is time for me to stop.

The thing is, we all have our shit to carry, and we all have our scars. Some of us have hollow places inside that can consume us with their emptiness if we let them. I’ve decided to use that melody of loss and wrap it around me and let it fill my own empty caverns, to let the heat of unshed tears be a salve for my own wounded heart.

We acquire the strength we have overcome. - Ralph Waldo Emerson