"Keep your heart above your head and your eyes wide open...save your strength for things that you can change. Forgive the one's you can't, you gotta let them go." - Zac Brown Band
While I sit here and contemplate everything that I have been faced with, I realize that this notion of letting go seems quite harsh, for "letting go" seems like it is filled with negativity. I am realizing that, in fact, I am moving forward, for everything that I have been holding onto will still stay with me, I am just holding and viewing them in a new light.
Selfishness & Selflessness: before your death Michael, I put everyone's thoughts and feelings before my own. For in my mind, everyone was more important than myself and due to my empathetic nature, I was happy when those around me were happy. I now know that tuning into my own thoughts and feelings first is not only not selfish but in fact is needed. By putting myself first, I can be more helpful to my loved ones.
Negative & Positive Grieving: Michael, your death and my grieving has filled the past five years. Not to the effect that I have been in a depression but each day I have felt dread and longing. Waking up to a feeling that "something just isn't quite right" turns even the most positive person into one filled with anger. Through different life experiences that I purposely made myself go through, I have found the you that is in me.
Realizing that when someone dies only their physical self leaves the earth has been my reassurance. While I know that I will have some tougher days, I am turning your life into a celebration. And why not? You are meant to be celebrated and it's time that I finally do.
Loneliness & Fulfillment: these two feelings have been the most difficult to overcome as they not only have severely plagued me the last five years but my entire life. Michael, with the hatred our parents have for each other along with the notion that they were "never truly there for us", their divorce turned me into a lonely being. It was our connection that truly saved me. For no matter what, we had each other...until you died.
Searching for my loneliness to disappear or at least dissipate, it was then that my conqueror found me. Swept away by him, I've spent the last five years thinking that if/when we are finally together, everything will be okay. That I will finally find inner peace. But I was wrong, for I will never be with my conqueror.
It was in these moments where I felt my life crumbling from beneath me that I realized that I am moving forward. While this process has not been easy, once I finally accepted this fate, a miracle happened. Ever since that fateful day where I discovered that my life, once again, was not going to turn out like I pictured, I have felt an overwhelming sense of fulfillment. This feeling, the feeling that I have been craving since birth, is here and real.
While I have always known that I will always be okay. I can confidently say that I truly feel as if I will be okay. For no matter where my life takes me, I will be bringing my fulfillment with me.
No fears and limitless, MHF
