I mean my life......the one of long ago......the one I held dear in all the best ways......now as I sit here, the sun rising, with the smell of coffee and in the silence....... it feels so far away from me.......maybe it is on my mind because I had a dream last night.....those are always challenging when they come.......like the deepest familiarity but just out of reach...........but my life feels like that, the once upon a time life.......it has begun to fade into the past as often happens to chapters of our lives that end the way this one did.........ironically today is the anniversary of my sister passing away in a car accident.......17 years ago.......and that chapter of my life feels the same way to me......like a dream.....where we were all alive, all a family.....our childhood, our shared history all of it.....there was the time before when she walked this earth and there is a time marked in my life of the after.......I thought losing her would break me.......it broke my heart in such a deep way......she was like my child......we were 10 years apart in age and I used to carry her around everywhere when she was small......be the mother hen to her baby sister.......and losing her......so tragically, so suddenly took a piece of my heart with her.........and the memory of her and our life together faded into the background......became dream like.......just like this is.......and it makes me wonder what part of our brains and hearts make those big things feel like that......truthfully when I think of my marriage and my family of four fading into a place where I cannot access it, it makes me feel a little panicky......so much of it was so special to me that I don't want to forget how it felt to stand in that place......how it felt to live in a house as a mom and dad and two kids.....do all of the things that half of America does each and every day.......soaking up my little family each and every day.......because while so much of my journey in the aftermath has been wildly liberating and exciting.......it has also been so strange.......so foreign......there are parts of me, my soul, my essence that were more comfortable in my old life........the part of me that nurtures, that takes care of people, that feels happy buzzing about making everybody feel cozy and safe........but there is a larger part of me that feels more like me than I ever have in my new life......more alive in nearly every way......so again as many things there is a duality that we all live.....nothing is one way or the other......it is normally a combination of so many things........and as my married life starts to take on that dream like quality I am not sure how I am feeling about it.......part of me feels relief that the open wound, bleeding out part has ended, I am pretty sure at least........that the deep pain that took the breath out of me has faded..........and just like dreams often do the longer you are AWAKE they fade further away.......just begin to fade into the background of your life......your brain saying I think I remember this, or feeling this while I was sleeping but I can't seem to access it.......and it scares me a bit.....having it fade too far.......not being able to wander around the wreckage as easily..............not access those places in my heart.......the ways I felt.......the emotions related to it.....the vivid memories of it all.....or maybe this is a phase of this, a cycle and it will loop around for awhile.......as I have said I am accepting and sharing what comes to me throughout it all.......not judging it, trying to control it or deny it........just letting it be each and every day........and today this is what it is......and it is OK
jperuso
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