Here’s to the Lows
I’ve been trying to think of what I wanted to write about this week…all week. Nothing was coming to mind. Then, Thursday night as I was cleaning, this piece I wrote over five years ago popped into my head. I scoured my notebooks (#writerproblems) only to come up empty handed. Luckily, my 2020 self thought it was worthy of being posted so I was able to grab it.
January 3, 2020
Here’s to the lows, the unclear aches in the center of your heart. The can’t-put-your-finger-on-it sadness. The times when you try everything to uncover, unmask, understand. But nothing works. So instead, you drop your head, and sit, surrender. No longer figuring it out. No more finding the answer. Simply allowing the melancholy to wash over you as a waterfall, cleansing you to face another day, another inexplicable sadness. Strengthening. Opening. Stabilizing. Here’s to the lows.
My world turned upside down a few weeks ago. The path I thought I was on was ripped away from me, and I came to a cliff. There were two options: turn around and run through the thorns to try and find the one sweet rose that made it all worth it, or to jump into something entirely new.
I’ve been free falling, trying to grasp onto any branch that may save me. Anything that would help me understand how I ended up here so suddenly. I’ve been analyzing every possibility, trying to find answers and trying to find my next move for something to focus on.
But that’s not how grieving works, is it? There won’t be a magical answer hiding somewhere in a book, a post, a kind word from a friend. Not until you sit with it. Not until you let the sadness take hold. I don’t think there can be any logic in grief. That’s all I’ve tried to do is intellectualize it, rationalize it.
All it’s asking me is to feel it. Then, and only then, will I land.
Here’s to the lows.
