Daily Log
30May2024 7:43
My alarm went off an hour ago, but I've been lying in bed smoking my mental cigarette trying to decide what it is I'm going to do.
This has been the thing lately. Deciding on the thing I'll be doing. Mind you I have this mental list and physical list of this. I've been in this very weird rhythm since the start of the year. I'm getting things done but at the same time, I feel like I'm wasting so much time. Yet when I stop and think about things I can recognize that I've accomplished a ton of things this year already.
So why do I still feel like I'm missing the mark? Why do I feel so clear-headed and peaceful and at the same time a log drifting in a motionless ocean?
I'm dealing with some personal things:
1. My closest aunt passed away at the closure of 2023, or at least I believe that was the time. It's a little blur in my memory.
See I felt so blindsided by it happening. And when I got the news I felt like I was grasping for something to make it a lie.
Part of me isn't sure if I've mentally escaped this situation....is part of my mind still suffering? Finding it difficult to move forward in life?
It's a crazy thought to have. At least for me when I look at everything around me.
2. They're telling me my grandfather will pass soon. Which sucks...It's rough for me, but the thing that concerns me is my mother. Cause here’s the thing...in the last 3 years, she lost 2 sisters and a partner with her father on the horizon.
Nobody prepares you for this...
I would have taken a "how to deal with lost" course over home ec or farmers ed.
Mostly I’ve felt powerless when it comes to these things…the truth is that I’m powerless when it comes to these things.
This is the villain I've been battling this year. The unprepared man, dealing with the loss of life. Everyone talks about how your body will change, and the responsibilities that will come the longer you walk upon this soil. Though a topic I've never heard mentioned is the longer you exist here the more people that have had an impact on your life will begin to vanish. That you'll just be left with the memory of them.
My mother has told me how sometimes she still thinks of giving her mother a call to share something…she passed around 22 years ago.
Habits are hard to break.
So far this year has been about life lessons:
It's ok to feel lost as you deal with new life experiences and to just cry sometimes. To feel incredibly strong and powerless all within the same vessel.
The balancing scales of life.
It's ok to celebrate the victories you have, enjoi life in every way. Take your time with things, and work at your pace, cause what is there to chase?
Times pace will not change, no matter how fast or slow you move. So the biggest victory is accepting the present moment. Much like a Christmas or a birthday gift. Appreciate the effort put into wrapping it, the thought of the purchase…it’s not so much about if you like it…rather recognizing it’s a gift. Life.
Even rivers run dry.
I'm sober now 6 plus months, which has allowed for clarity in my life. I’ve accomplished some business goals that have blown my mind this year, I think I've almost read double the amount of books I set out to this year, and my family is the healthiest I've known it to be.
I just wrote about all this loss for most of this sharing to say this:
I wake up excited every day, even the ones when I don’t feel like jumping straight out of bed. I still have this eagerness to see what the day will deliver me.
Sometimes I cry, like right now. My eyes feel like they are tired of holding back my soul’s wows.
Yet life is beautiful, my tears fall because of the joy, love, and peace I've experienced so far on my journey.
As my mental cigarette draws to its end my last thoughts are,
“There’s a lot I've gained this year through the loss. I'm working on being kind to myself as I navigate this sea of time because no one ever told me that you could go through a storm when you felt at the highest in your life. No one ever explained to me loss can be equal between its sadness and beauty.”