JANUARY 2024

LIFE | LOVE | LOSS

“And suddenly you just know it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginning.”

-Meister Eckhart

WHO WOULD YOU BE TODAY?

“Grief, I say, come in, Sit down.

I have tea.  There is honey. This will take as long as it takes.”

-this hallowed wilderness

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2024.  I hope that you found peace even briefly during the holiday season.  Now get ready for all the exercise and Tupperware ads!  The world will be telling you its time to get yourself in better shape and get organized.  Do that if you want to!  If not, then what is something you do want to edit or update in your life?  Choose that for yourself.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is emotionally difficult for me.  I feel melancholy, sad, and tired.  Its like a muscle memory of the first year after Joey died.  I wanted to stay inside of 2017 with everything I had.  I felt almost panicked NOT wanting to leave that year as I knew there would never be another year he existed inside of.  There would NEVER be another year he was here, that he lived, that he laughed, hugged me, slept under my roof, ate dinner in the kitchen, made a funny joke, asked how my day was.  I HATED the thought of leaving this measure of time where he DID exist.  It was tearing my mind and heart apart anew.

New Years Eve 2017 was awful.  The world wanted to celebrate, shouting joyful things about all the good to come while I was clawing and fighting to hold on to every last minute of a year where my precious boy did exist. I heard the Kenny Chesney song ‘Who would you be today” the other day and the lyrics are so real for what I wonder about my pup, who would he be?  Would he have started a family, what would he name his babies?  It is the wanting, the wondering that can drive your mind and heart mad if you let it.  Though part of healing is allowing yourself the time and space to feel the pain of the loss.  So, with a new year I let myself reflect on who he would be. I let my heart ache with the wanting of him to be here, to share in this time and space with me.  I long to see his face, hear his laugh, see his dimpled smile.  Time does not change that.

“Sunny days seem to hurt the most
I wear the pain like a heavy coat
I feel you everywhere I go
I see your smile, I see your face
I hear you laughing in the rain
I still can’t believe you’re gone

Would you see the world, would you chase your dreams
Settle down with a family
I wonder what would you name your babies
Some days the sky’s so blue
I feel like I can talk to you
I know it might sound crazy

It ain’t fair you died too young
Like a story that had just begun
But death tore the pages all away
God knows how I miss you
All the hell that I’ve been through
Just knowing no one could take your place
Sometimes I wonder who you’d be today”

So, we start anew.  We make fresh goals.  Set new directives for who we want to be inside of our pain and grief.  If we didn’t, we would be letting the pain win.  So, I will go on Adventures this year.  I will listen to great music, make memories, laugh, and love a little deeper honoring myself and the love I hold for my sweet boy. Greif journeys are personal and while I never would have chosen to lose him, I do get to chose how I live and honor him inside the pain of this loss.  I will do it will love, laughter and a few curse words!

“Your grief is your own.  It may sneak up in moments that feel inconvenient. But the loss of someone you love was never something that was convenient.  So, your grief won’t be either.  You will grieve. You will cry.  You will break down.  You will be a mess.  But you don’t owe anyone an apology for how you choose to grieve.  Grief is messy.  Grief is unkind.  Grief comes bearing heaviness you didn’t ever know about before.  But in that grief, what you find is the kind of people who will at least try to lighten the load of what it is you’re carrying.  No one can bring them back or make that pain go away.  But on the other side of this coin that is grief, is so much love for someone who left too soon.”

-Kristen Corley

I hope you will create some time for peace for yourself this month.  Create some hope in your own mind and heart no matter what circumstances you are in.  Make peace a priority for yourself.  I invite you to carve a path of well-being with love and kindness in your actions in how you treat yourself.  Give yourself the gift of added patience and tenderness.  Treat yourself with extra care as you begin this year anew.  Make the choices to have it be all that you want it to be!  Life and love are good, find that, seek that, fall deeper into that!

All my best,

Genna