Finding Peace  – What is peace?  I am feeling better – but I wouldn’t say I’m at peace. I guess I have some unfinished business to attend to.  When I review the past 8 months and read over some of my posts and other writings I understand better (at least for this moment) the very precarious nature of my foothold.  I wonder why I had to weather this on my own, why Icouldn’t turn to my OA friends, my closest friends or my sisters or my husband for support. Why have I been content to be alone…. in my anguish?

At some point over these past months – with the help of an excellent grief councellor I’ve found myself slowly gaining a foothold on a new life, a different life.  My sadness is less intense and I am gaining a new perspective… and it’s okay. Not to say I don’t have moments but they are getting less in frequency and intensity.  Its true – … time is the greatest healer.  One thing I’ve learned not just from my experience in coping with grief but also in healing is that my strength and resilience comes from some spark deep within my being.  My guess is that we all possess this  and it is what gets us through tough times. I’m not alone – there are countless souls suffering and surviving.  What is remarkable is with the pain of loss comes an enhanced capacity to appreciate the simple joys we experience everyday.  Small things that help blunt the sharp edge of despair have helped me better understand the nature of my exsistence.   

This is Life , this is all you get….

Yup a big ole mess of stuff – some happy, some sad, some easy, some hard, some of everything.  My grief councellor told me when I began talking about the past couple of years and what I’d been going through… she explained life challenges and changes create stress for all of us and they have measurements for them: such as Loss of a job, a new job, moving, death of a close relative, friend, serious illness of a child or spouse… she explained there wasn’t a spot for me on the chart – I was  off the chart!! haha 

I realized I don’t get second chances for today. Sure, sure there is always tomorrow but you can’t go back and change yesterday…. unless you have some magic ability to transcend time and place. You have to live today and no matter what is going on there is stuff going on – good, bad, amazing and awful.  The trick is to deal with whatever comes your way with the knowledge that you can deal with it no matter what.  The clock continues to move time forward and how you choose to deal with it is how you deal with.  The beauty is you have the choice… once you get that then everything else makes sense ( for the moment – anyway)  I have a new life – I have learned some really, really hard lessons and yes I have unfinished business.  Lots of it…. some will be hard to deal with , some won’t but I do know without a doubt – if I don’t face things they will come up and bite me on my behind!