Not Everything You Lose is a Loss

Once upon a time I lost something that meant everything to me.  It was the hardest loss I've ever felt and the grief nearly killed me.  After years of replaying, reevaluating, reexamining every moment from my life, there is one thing I have come to understand and it is this:  Not everything you lose is truly a loss.

Sometimes there are things that we work so hard on, give so much to that we don't see how they're draining us, drowning us.  Sometimes it takes an accident, the use of force, or an act of God to open our eyes.  Sometimes there are poisonous things that we are holding onto so tightly, we don't even see that they're killing us.  We have to have that thing wrenched from our grasp before we can recognize the damage.

Maybe it's the career you worked so hard on and only when you were fired and looking for something new do you realize how you've neglected family and friends for a job where no one cared about you and they hired your replacement by the end of the day.  Now you look forward to long weekends with friends instead of long hours at the office.

Maybe the love of your life just left your for their secret side piece.  Oh, please let them go.  Let someone else get all their blame and put up with all their excuses.  Live your life in a way that you enjoy and maybe eventually find someone who gives as much of themselves and their heart to a relationship with you as you give.

Maybe it's the life you thought you wanted, the big apartment in the big city.  It's what you've always dreamed of, but your elderly parent needs care, so you put that dream away to take care of them.  Perhaps you will find that the time spent with them is the best you can remember in a long, long time, or perhaps you'll just find that when they do pass, you'll sleep easy at night knowing you followed your conscience instead of your former dream.

The best course of action, in my own personal experience is never to cling too tightly to anyone or anything in this life, including your own life itself.  No one stays forever and nothing stays the same forever.  Dreams change and dreams die like all other things and it is all woven into this mystery of living.

At first, I was angry, I was so deeply hurt I wanted to die and I think that part of me did die, the best part I thought, the part that was holding onto life so tightly, guarding her dreams so closely.  Too tightly,  too closely, so that in fact I wasn't holding them at all; they were holding me.  I was a prisoner to my dreams and I didn't know it until they were gone.

Sitting in the ashes, as the grief finally began to subside, I felt a lightness, a disconnection, a freedom.  Nothing was holding me now.  No dreams, no plans, no fears.  No expectations to live up to, no goals to work toward.  Nothing was left but the rest of my life to do whatever I wished, say whatever I wished, be whomever I wished.

I recently found myself faced with someone whose life was burning down around them.  The old me would have avoided this person, not wanting their pain to contaminate my life.  Current me sought this person out, extended my hand and said, let me walk with you through this.  This person, recently came to me and said, "I wouldn't have made it through that without you."  I can't imagine gaining any higher honor, any greater compliment than hearing those words.  I didn't help for glory or even a thank you, I did it because I know what it is to be in hell and have people pass you by, willfully oblivious and fearful of being contaminated by your pain.  Because I know how it feels to be in that place, I can never again, turn my face and walk by.  

No one ever thanked the person I was before.  No one remembered her when she was gone and hardly anyone noticed when she was in the room.  And then everything changed.  Did I lose my dreams?  Did lose everything that I thought mattered most?  Yes.  But in the end, it wasn't such a loss, because although things are messy and broken now, I have gained a life that matters and a heart that cares.

The only true loss would have been to continue living a life behind walls of fear, a life that made no sound, that made no difference to anyone.  I might have lost everything, but I have gained the only thing that matters.  So, if there is something  you have been grieving over it, perhaps it's time to stop.   Perhaps it's time to reevaluate what matters most and let go of the things that are only holding you back from being and doing all you were destined for.

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