Waving goodbye to the past

I feel the last few years are catching up with me. Many feelings are coming up to the surface for first time to be illuminated. Things I realise for a first time ever. Things sometimes too grave.

My life for the past 4 years has been grave in many ways. Not only, of course, but mostly. I realise now that as soon as my relationship with my partner began, it was stifled almost in the bud. Uninvited visitors, like death, grief, anxiety, came along and didn’t leave much of a space for us to breathe as a new family.

My love for my partner was suffocated. My love for my child was drowned.

It’s too much, I know. I’ve been haunted by a lot of pain, I’ve been kept captive to a lot of hurt. It wasn’t my choice but it was my reality.

I see how I’ve hurt the people around me in return. I couldn’t help it, my brain was kicking in a survival mode. And that’s what it has all been for the last few years – a mere survival.

There was no life – no living, no joy. It was a downpour of heaviness, of bricks and stones of pain. Yes, it was.

I’m mourning now. I feel this is the right thing to do right now, the only thing I can do. To mourn the loss of these years. To mourn the premature death of my relationship, the stillborn love for my child.

I know this isn’t easy to read, to witness, to even start comprehending it. But I know better now that it’s harder to keep it inside of me. I cannot keep hiding, I cannot keep merely surviving any more.

It is time that I face the reality for what it is – ugly, terrifying or full of regret. It is my reality. It is my life. I still have life in me, I still have love in me. I haven’t given up yet, although many a time I’ve dreamed of  the end.

I am not scared anymore. I know what I’ve been through, I know how much I’ve hurt, how much I’ve hated myself for what I’ve felt, how guilty I’ve felt for not having a “normal” life, not being able to enjoy “normal” things.

No, I had to look through the prism of death and sorrow. Everything seemed grey. And I blamed myself even harder for that. And then, in turn, hurt myself and others even more. Oh, what a vicious cycle!

But, you know, there’s always the light. The light wants to shine brighter through me now. It’s showing me all this now. Yesterday I didn’t even suspect that any of this will come up. I’m not forgotten, I’m not left to live in decay. I’ve been given another chance at life.

All I know is that at some point, death decided to show up in my life and leave a deep trail of pain behind itself. I had to go down with it, in the underworld of my soul and see and experience for myself. My human world just faded into a shadow and sadly my relationships sunk therein too.

I feel the grace now, I feel the extended hand. I’ve been summoned back by a force greater that me. It says to me “Do you see now?”.

Not everything I understand but I’ve been given the chance to mourn and let go of it all.

So I respond to this call. I’m crying for the lost years, the lost love, the lost joy, the lost life.

Before I start anew, I need to say a proper goodbye. Looking into all that pain isn’t easy to bear. I haven’t invited it but now that’s showing itself to me, I need to acknowledge it. So I can wave one last goodbye to it.

Goodbye.