PhotoCredit: Lemons
My beautiful, amazing, life-affirming, quite crazy (in all the right ways) friend had a deep awareness of the fragility of life. It’s profound to me that she was taken from this earth as young and suddenly as she was. It’s as if she knew, all along, her days were numbered.
I think about her daily. We didn’t live in the same country so her absence from this world feels abstract. It’s more like she just stopped texting. It’s more like we both got busy and stopped planning adventures. It doesn’t feel like she’s gone.
We are all living with pretty profound loss. Loss isn’t relative. Loss is personal. From jobs, to loved ones, to freedoms, to workplaces to summer holiday plans. What is real for you IS real. How do we support recovery from loss? How do we cope in this world that feels like endless grieving?
We can think about making lemonade with the lemons of life. I love to stay positive, it’s my Modus Operandi. But sometimes you just can’t. And sometimes you shouldn’t.
My friend would say “when life takes away your lemons, throw rocks at it.” She would say it with a hint of resignation to the lack of control she had in that moment. Whether it was a bad grade, a breakup, the ongoing renovations of her house that never seemed to be finished or her stupid friend living so stupidly far away.
Those were the easy things. She battled her way through a lot of hard stuff. A lot of stolen lemons.
I love her, I miss her, I am pissed off she is gone. We can all learn to live with our altered existences but it really doesn’t mean we have to like it. It’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to be hurt and it’s ok to be frustrated.
Feel the pain. Don’t pretend it’s not there. Stop for a moment when it bubbles up. We don't need to race through life like it doesn't hurt. This year has been intense and it’s likely to stay intense for a good while longer. Give yourself a break every now and then. Support your recovery. Support your sanity.