getting used to a different life

When one has a loved one experience a life changing medical episode, we tend to retreat back into ourselves, out of fear, insecurity and all around confusion. I decided that although I want to do that some days, the retreating part, I am going to learn how to be brave in this world.

I am not going to run away from worry or fear, from confusion or impatience for what is. I am going to to try and wake up every day and remind myself that although my family has had a scare, we are still here, together, trying to figure it out. So I must try and do what I encourage all of you do to, be yourself, feel everything, love fully, live in your own skin. Don't do it for me, or your friends, or because you think you have to.

I am going to get through sadness and grief for what is or what was, and in order to that I have to face my fear of loss. We can never get back what is truly lost whether it be love, or friendship, children, or family, once it is gone it is gone. But we have not died with those things we loved, we are still here on this great planet.

So let our journey continue. I think the reason we don't know how to live in our own skin is because we use the skin to hide in, as a facade, to fool ourselves into thinking none sees us for who we really are. Let's use the skin as an integral part of who we are. Let THAT be the first thing people see, not the last.

Let this be the first day that you, my reader, my friend, my family member, live the life you are supposed to live. Don't think I know of what I am suggesting, I am walking this path beside you still trying to figure it out......

looking at life differently

I am relieved to say that my husband is home from the hospital. During the time he was in there, a million different thoughts raced through my head. Would things be okay, would he be compliant, would this awful intruder come into his body and our lives again?

Sitting watching him sleep each day gave me a lot of time to think. It brought me back to a time long ago, I was 20 years old and had a dying grandfather. What was life like in those moments and did I ever tell him how my life was affected by his presence? Did I think about that 20 years later when my mom was dying? Did I say exactly what I needed to say in the last moments we had together?

Why do we wait until someone is sick or dying to express our truest, innermost thoughts and feelings? What stops us from doing that when they are alive and well? Fear? and of what? That we may appear vulnerable and "sappy" or that we may have to explain our feelings, talk about them, expose them?

I have always considered myself a very demonstrative person, one who wears her heart on her sleeve, who tells those she loves and cares about that she does so, someone who loves with her whole heart. Yet as I get older I find myself holding back a little, when it should be just the opposite. We should come out of our cocoons as we get older and learn to emerge in the skin we are supposed to live our lives in. This past week has reminded me that life is precious and that we waste a lot of time NOT saying what is truly important. We let those people we love leave our lives in one way or another and never express our hearts, never show our true selves, never live life in our own skins.

I ask you to begin a new way of thinking and feeling. Love those you love fully, and tell them so, whether it be a friend, a family member, a spouse, a partner. Just tell them how you feel, love outwardly instead of inwardly. You will get so much back in return, I promise you.....

trials and tribulations

Recently my husband had a heart attack. At the moment I realized it was happening the world took on a different meaning. Would I lose someone I was connected to for 30 years? Would life as I knew it change forever? Would I be able to live in my own skin while taking care of others?

All of these questions swam through my mind at a considerably eccelerated rate and I was and still am unsure about how to proceed. Am I brave enough to travel the road ahead while dealing with the changes my husband and family will have to go through? Will I be able to be true to who I am, taking care of me, nurturing my needs while making sure that he is healing?

Do we go through life being "something" for others but not enough for ourselves? Do we get to the end of our lives and wonder if we actually knew who we were? And did we become the person we always wanted to be or was it too hard to be true to only ourselves?

I would be so interested to know how you, my friend and reader of this blog have handled a crisis in life and whether you lost yourself to it, or remained true and authentic. Did you in fact live in your own skin?