Best of 2018’s Week 37

“Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is.”
…
“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns…We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.”

Tara Brach
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

Yesterday was C’s birthday. It is the first birthday I’ve missed in five years.

I felt the empty seat beside my heart.

I told friends that I just needed to turn the phone off and spend the day exploring. I wish I could flip my heart – and mind – off so simply. As such, I spent the day pulling coils off barb wire out from around my heart and abandoning them along the Ohio River.

At the end of the day, as I sat in a Riverview Cemetery overlooking Martins Ferry, I did my best to find perspective and peace. Surrounded by so many finished stories made me recognize I have no idea how the story with C will end or where my story will take me. I’m working to be open to all the possibilities.

In truth, I’m terrified I will never find the love and passion C brought out of me and she helped me discover. It is one of the qualities of our life together I miss the most. I was always better with her. I miss her and our life.

Now I’m left to find my love and Passions without her.

All I can do is suit-up, show-up, and cross the bridges as they present themselves at the next turn of the river.