Nothing in my life is as expected, as is the case for many other peoples lives too.
Today, I have yet another health procedure. This is not the 1st, 2nd nor 50th doctor trip I take. If you asked me is this the life you expected to have when you hit 30? It would be a strong no. The picture I painted was definitely far from this. Part of the picture I painted was I would be happily married and with 2 or maybe 3 kids. Of course, I also expected I would be incredibly healthy. So on my 100th + doctor trip, I asked myself many questions:
As I contemplate these questions, I hear an internal voice within me say, this should not be how my life is – I had a plan. I increasingly repeated this statement both consciously and unconsciously this month as I experienced yet another heart break from yet another failed romantic relationship and another failed health treatment.
Unfortunately I do not have answers to share because for now I have none. What I do have is a gentle reminder, to myself and to whoever may be experiencing hardship, to breathe.
It is okay if life gets overwhelming, it is okay that life deviates from our life plan and it is okay if you feel confused, sad and a little mad while also figuring out how to make it beautiful again. That is the wonder of being human we adapt, grow and re-imagine.
Right now, i’m focusing on breathing in the here and now because there is nothing else for me to do. I cannot make my disease go away and I cannot make the man I love want to build a life with me, so all I can do is breathe.
Lets, together, practice gratitude for the tiniest yet mightiest thing we are all experiencing which is – breathing. Come, lets take three deep breaths together:
3
breathe
2
breathe
1
breathe
Remember you and I are alive. We are alive, we are breathing. Many people who have passed away would have wished for just one more breath. So in honor of being alive and for the potential beautiful surprises that life may be bring, lets breathe deeper than the second that just passed. Lets repeat: 3, 2 and 1.
For now, I leave you with a beautiful poem by Mark Nepo that leaves me breathing a bit deeper (and I hope you as well) knowing it is okay for me to feel and see both beauty and sadness at the same time. Trusting that it will all be more than OK in the end of it all.
Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
Mark Nepo
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze
makes the birds move from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh
of the next stranger. In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.