The Losses (On Turning 40)
A good lesson to remember
Sorrow runs deep, my body heavy. The despair lingers. Endless days spent in bed, endless cups of tea sure to be the cure. Yet the ache remains.
The virus shifts from body part to body part. It’s in my stomach; knotted and cramped. A sharp pain pierces the heart; I fear I’m having a heart attack. My breaths shallow, I work hard to be calm. A lump on my knee feels swollen; infection? Numbness, tingling, spasms crawl up here and down there, in my bones and in my blood; head to toe I’ll never recover.
Rest. Take care.
As if I’m in a morphine-induced hallucination, every single one of them appears before me. Shoulder to shoulder, a timeline of each one right there at the forefront of my memory and lined up perfectly in the core of my heart…
…the losses.
The first. The last. The young. The unborn. The expected. The suffering. The ones still hovering that I’ve watched from afar. The ones burdened with misery, the ones full of peace and love. The ones aware of all that will be left behind and the ones who have no clue. Opportunities missed, conflicts hanging, words left unspoken. The ones who want to hurt me, and the ones who want to hold me.
I trust.
Trust the losses.
Me in Minnesota (still in my 30s)
I’m saying goodbye to my thirties. I loved them… such a transformative adventure. I get to start my forties halfway around the world, in a country I never even thought I would ever visit, mother of two children who are filled with so much light they don’t even know what to do with it, and a husband who is truly my best friend. None of that would have been possible had I not trusted the losses.
Tears roll down my cheeks, a reminder it’s okay to ache. It’s okay to pay attention. It’s okay to suffer. It’s okay to be emotional, sensitive, too nice, too sad, too intense, too bitchy, too whatever. It’s okay to have losses. It’s okay to grieve. I fully accept sorrow is part of life.
Thank you!
I see you, losses. I trust you. I won’t forget you happened, but thanks for the reminder. I’d be naïve to think there won’t be more. For now, I’m going back to bed. I’m going to take care.
Take care of the losses.
Zip lining into my 40th photo by Husband