Anchors Away.

[yellowbird]

I have felt beyond lost since I lost my Lizzy. It has been almost indefinable. The grief due to loss is obvious but I was aware that it was so much more than that. I made a choice to decrease the pain of loss by putting away all reminders of my lost friend. To actively work to increase the joy in my daily life by spending time with my loved ones. In doing this the indefinable became defined. I had felt like I had lost all my anchors. I had spent my life tethered. Tethered to people, possessions, education, title, roles and even my choices. A sense of purpose, a value assessment of myself and my role to play in my own existence. What I had not realised was how much of this was stripped when Lizzy died. All my metal chains and anchors were suddenly reduced to dental floss. So many of them snapped and dissolved and I was left floundering. I could not ignore the evidence. Her baby does not remember her now. Her house is now someone else's. Her possessions divided up and shared and the remaining donated and discarded. Her achievements now scraps of paper in a book, their only value being one of sentimentality. I was so brutally aware of how she was reduced to a handful of trinkets in a box and a sense of what it is all for. I do not believe in God or religious purpose. I am a scientist and evidence based in my thinking, and this area of loss and grief is not a thinking arena, and I have found myself struggling. But this time spent seeking joy has left me with a new sense of anchoring. I can not truly anchor to any person because I am now so profoundly aware that, we never know when they may be taken. I can not anchor to any of the other things in my life that once gave me a sense of value and purpose for I have realised in this devastating loss that nothing is permanent. The only thing that truly is possible to anchor to, is joy. Joy, in whatever form that comes. In this way I am anchored to my loved ones, my achievements, my sentimental and treasured possessions. But it is not a direct anchoring. It is a linked anchoring. The joining link that holds them all to me is the anchor to joy. For the first time since my Lizzy slipped into rest I have found some peace. In this thinking, a link is broken, but not completely. Part of the link to her is dissolved, but the anchor from joy to me is not and all the beauty that was her love and laughter in my life can never be broken. This anchor to joy is permanent. It can not be turned to dental floss, snapped or dissolved. And through it I can survive this and retain the most important part of myself and the part of myself I shared with her. My joy, unbroken, undiluted, ever present and eternal.

[ModKonnie]

Yellowbird,

I can't help but think that your positive thoughts and your decision to make a choice to have joy in your life are good.

ModKonnie