A new beginning

"In the Midst of winter
I finally found there was within me
An invincible summer"

Albert Camus



Some days we wake up with a newfound sense of understanding. In these moments we are granted a short time to glimpse deeply into the machinery of the universe and nod our heads at the poetry and synchronicity of what it is we are doing here. Today for me was one of those days. These kinds of days can never be planned or deliberately discovered, but instead stumbled upon humbly and almost entirely by accident.

One thing I do know, is that for me this feeling nearly always comes from giving some part of myself to someone else. Today I ran a grief counseling group for people who had recently suffered the death of a someone close to them. Normally these groups are quite intense, and today was no exception. About 30 minutes in today we began a discussion of how our time here on Earth echoes much longer than the duration of our physical bodies. This I believe very deeply. All of our human connections have deep meaning, and we affect each other in a million little ways we rarely take the time to truly consider or comprehend. Today, for one hour, myself and 6 other human beings took the time to tell each other a little bit of how much we have affected each other. I precipitated this display of emotional honesty as a result of all of the things I have been through in recent months since I have been sober. It was a big step.

The power and energy in that room were tremendous. All of this was precipitated on the idea that we weren't going to leave things unsaid. Much of the grieving process is about this very thing. We not only miss the person who is gone but we miss the things we didn't say to them. We find we would give nearly anything for one more day to tell someone all of the things they meant to us.

So.... The lesson is, although we don't get that day with that particular person, we can apply this lesson to the people who are still here. We can tell people each and every day how much we appreciate all of the little ways they have touched our lives. We can't just assume people know. We need to say the words. To look into someone's eyes and make this connection.

So I've been doing this for the last week. In many ways I feel like my life is starting over and it's a wonderfully scary feeling. I feel like I have emerged from an emotionally closed cocoon. It is new. Wonderfully new.