It is absolutely POURING rain outside ~ one of the expressions I have heard is ~ it is HOSING down rain. I have one child who would run outside in the pouring rain and whipping wind dancing and screaming with delight. I have another child who expresses fear and despair over possible flooding and losing everything. I have another child who hunkers down deeply affected by the lack of sunshine and the roar of the wind.
We are all so unique
Once, a long time ago, I saw a woman dancing by the ocean in total freedom. She was beautiful and wild and undone. I was still so young but I knew then that I was not like her. I was already so constrained. I however KNEW that I wanted to be like her. As time has gone on the world has done more and more to take away even the wish to dance by the ocean. It has used many mediums to strip away the essence of who I was created to be.
Is that you too?
Do you feel you were created for so much more? And yet the cruelty of circumstances, the unfairness that life brings, has stripped you of so much?
If so I want to acknowledge how hard it is to exist in a body that feels that grief daily. It withers us in so many ways. It impacts our health and wellness too.
I think it is important to remember what my grandmother did
My grandmother was a remarkable woman. She lived through the dirty thirties and had to experience losing her families generational farm to an auction. She lived through World War Two where she met her husband and was married at age nineteen. She moved far away from her family and was at the mercy of her husband who had many emotional issues and struggles. She had five children but had to work outside the home. When she got older she lost her hearing more and more, she lost her teeth, she then lost her eyesight. My grandmother was a beautiful vibrant woman. She was tall and creative and capable. She grew a vegetable garden every year. She canned her food. She had an amazing flower garden. She was a photographer. She scrapbooked and sewed her own clothes. She was the co captain on my grandfathers sail boat. She was an avid hiker and loved live music, museums and art galleries.
I remember the very last day she drove. I was with her and she almost hit a pedestrian. Her eyes had gotten so bad that she had not seen him. I can't imagine the grief she must have felt at having that freedom taken away as my grandfather was not a man with a servants heart per say and having to rely on him would not have been easy. My grandmother loved to quilt. She made incredible complicated quilts that took months to make. As her eye sight failed she had to give that up. She had to give up almost everything. Instead of despairing she decided to take piano lessons. After a time she could not do that and so she decided to write poetry. Her poetry was not just for her. She wrote about her childhood and sent the poems to the town paper where she grew up. They published them all and she blessed many people. She made choice after choice to keep on going but not just for herself. Her creativity blessed the world around her.
My point is ~ for many many MANY people the reality is ~ they can choose to lose hope, give up, despair and wither OR they can be like my grandmother ~ as life threw her curveball after curveball she did not give up. She also did not just live for herself. I also saw my grandfather do just the opposite as he aged. So I have seen both choices and what they do to a soul.
I have always hoped to be like my grandmother, but that takes bravery, grit, determination, and a heart that can be flexible and forgiving. Do I have that in me? I hope so.
We are all so unique. We all have our own reactions to rain storms. We all have choices to make as to how to pivot, to blossom, to thrive when we are in our storms
May you truly live
xo
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