Snags ahoy!

I always thought I would never again take for granted ANYTHING or anyone that was important to me. Not after losing Ella.

The thing is, the ongoing nature of life does slowly begin to cloud the very raw realisations you form. Forever changed by that situation, but at the same time very much moving away from the event by which your course has been altered.

We cannot remain open in that raw state. But it is at a time like that in your life when you are faced with the truth, the clarity, of what else is possible. What is unseen. What is a mystery beyond the veil. When squared up like that, particularly if it was unexpected and sudden, one can find themselves looking into a void. But it's a void where the important things are so easy to see. Stripped of the shroud of muck that society on the whole just blankets it all in. And to hold firm to that is supremely difficult, for if you stay in that state of mind you run the risk of being outcast, of being told you are not coping or moving on, or of simply feeling so unsupported (unless you are fortunate to find a solid base, something I do not take for granted and thank my lucky stars for daily, quite literally) that it is easier to shut up and deny what you've seen or experienced just to be accepted once more. Like some unruly child on the wrong side of the tracks who suddenly saw the error of their ways and rejoined the cult that is the human race.

So it's a dichotomy, of sorts. Strangely, you find yourself more aware than ever before of life's pettiness, of the seeming "ungratefulness" of someone else, perhaps of the way an outwardly apparent charmed existence is being taken for granted. And yet, as time marches on and the shockwaves disperse, you do move back in step with the people around you; to complain about those little things you swore as you held your baby for the last time in your arms that you would never ever find value in complaining about again.

Is it the way of human nature? That you can make those promises to yourself in your grief and yet, in order to box that grief and its resultant aching physical pain, your body urges you to move forward from that point. To go along with life and slip back in, at some point over the weeks, months or years. And in so doing, allowing yourself to forget all that which you promised you would not let get to you again.

Much of what I do and how I look on it is different, this is true. The framework was set in concrete on February 12th, 2004. But still, I have not been immune from getting snagged by what goes on around me. The opinions and actions of others that routinely catch me and reel me in again. For it is far easier to go along and seem agreeable (it's in my nature and that part of me remains unchanged).

The hardest lesson for me has been in growing accustomed to hearing conviction in my new voice. Being comfortable to actually have an open opinion. And I am getting very used to standing in my truth.

Time will just have to tell if sticking to this consistently is the way forward out of the mire.