Today is my birthday. I just “cheated” a little bit and I went back and I read what I wrote on my birthday during previous years on the blog. It’s funny, some years the birthday post was an entirely long, emotional outpouring and then, one year I didn’t even mention that it was my birthday. That’s the way of birthdays, right? Some years you wake up all chipper and excited and you almost feel like that 11-year-old kid again, when your birthday was almost as exciting as Christmas. And then other years, you feel very quiet and introspective and reflective and maybe even a little somber. And sometimes, you even wish that you could avoid the whole hoop-la altogether. Today, I woke up with a slight migraine. So until my Advil completely kicks in, all that I am feeling today, on my birthday, is annoyingly “thumpy” in my head.
Recently, close friends of mine asked me if I was ever going to write about some really difficult chapters and happenings in my life. They encouraged me to do so. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. These painful situations in my life, involve other people and I am always tentative to write personal things about other people. I feel tentative, because living to the age of 51, has shown me that what I believed to be true at one certain stage of my life, oftentimes, after some time has past, and some processing has created a little bit of growth in me, I often see the various situations and happenings in my life, in a different light. At the very least, after time, and some processing and some personal growth, most of the happenings (the good and the bad) in my life lose their intensity and their consumption of my time and my focus of thought. Perhaps, this is what we really mean by “forgiveness.” When emotion is processed and it dies down, you are able to look at situations, and at other people (and even yourself) with real clarity and sometimes even compassion. You are able to pick up the broken pieces. You discard what is no longer needed, and what is too heavy to carry, and you do this in order to move on forward, on your life’s path, standing a little taller and walking on, a little lighter and a little more confident. I am not sure if writing about what has happened in the past, would help me on my path. It might just add a heavy load to my bag, that I no longer want to carry on my journey. Time will tell.
In life, we all have our storms, right? And when they are torrential storms, they have the tendency to shape us, and to mold us like no other events have ever done in our lives. When these major storms hit our life’s path, our first tendency is to ignore them, or to try to run away from them, or we make up stories, pretending that these storms aren’t actually happening . . . we just don’t want to admit to, nor look at the damage that these violent storms are creating in our lives. We just don’t want to deal with the storms. But eventually, these storms’ relentlessness requires us to face them head on, because if we don’t, we are likely to diminish and/or to perish. Our pain in the storm finally becomes overwhelmingly greater than the pain and the fear that we have about the unknown and of change. When we are at our utter weakest in the storms, when we are totally exhausted and completely battered and spent, is usually when we finally surrender, and this is when the miracle happens. We become stronger than we ever knew was possible. We make it through the storm, to the other side and we head on safely towards the light.
In my life’s experience, I am best able to come to peace with any situation that has happened, when I know that I can trust myself to protect myself. When I step out of my victim chair, and I take back my power and I say, “No more,” is when the people and the situations that used to consume me, lose their intense pull in my life. My attention goes elsewhere, to the people and to the situations and to the experiences that bring me the most love and joy and wonder into my life. And what is left from the storms of the past, are a few scars, but also the lessons, and my newfound strength, and most importantly, the love and the trust that I have for myself. I realize my own worth, and that I am the protector and the guardian of my own worth. Having gone through the storm and having made it through to the other side, I realize what a capable guardian of myself, I truly am. I realize that I am loved and I am valued by myself, and that feels really good.
The storms in life are often necessary, in order for the greatest truths and understandings to come to light for each of us. Of course, the raging storms are real, and oftentimes, we are not even the creators of the storms that hit us, head on. We were just sailing along, minding our own business, when the squall comes out of seemingly nowhere, sometimes with an unwarranted vengeance, and complete with soulless pirates, all out for blood. The feelings and the desperation and the anger about the unfairness of it all, are real and hard and deep and understandable, and the feelings must be felt and they must be processed, in order for us to make it to the safe shores beyond the storms. Some people choose to stay in the storms. These people may like the excitement and the intensity and the drama of the storms. They may only feel truly alive, when they are in the middle of a barrage of storms. And that’s okay. It’s their journey. They are the navigators of their own paths. Some people would desperately like to escape their storms, but they never come to the realization that they are their own tickets out of the storms. They don’t comprehend that they are their own captains. We can try to show them how we, ourselves, made it out of our own similar storms, but in the end, they must take their own brave moves, to navigate towards the clear, peaceful skies. We must respect other people’s right to journey in life, as they see fit, but we must also remember that we always have the right and the ability to navigate out of a storm, even when others choose to stay in the storm.
I think that I am all done with today’s birthday post now. I wonder what it will mean to me when I read this post, on my birthday next year. One thing that I have learned with each passing year, is that whenever I think I am totally certain about something, something tends to happen (sometimes even a storm) to change my surety. With every birthday, another layer is removed, and the mystery of it all, still continues on. One thing that has never changed for me, is that I am so grateful for this experience of living Life. I am grateful to celebrate yet another birthday and I can’t wait to see what is on the horizon next, storms and all.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
