On launch day for the World-Changing Writing Workshop, Pace posted a link to the video we made the day we started the Freak Revolution.
I watched the video, which I hadn’t watched in a year.
I was really struck by my face. I watched myself talk, watching my lips, my facial expressions, my own eyes – all with this surreal feeling. Something felt very odd, not quite right.
Then it hit me.
This video is only a year old – but I look much, much older now, especially my eyes. My eyes are stormier, sad, somehow less. As I sat watching my own video, tears slid down my face and I thought, “I’ve lost something. I’ve lost my innocence.”
When I look at pictures and videos of myself from only six months ago, I get the same feeling. When my uterus collapsed, I started dealing with very intense physical trauma – followed immediately by very intense personal trauma, and it hasn’t let up.
This has been one of the hardest years of my life. I’ve spent months in a deep depression. I’ve undergone a massive spiritual crisis. I threw myself into the creation and launch of the World-Changing Writing workshop so I wouldn’t think about it.
But still, this has been here, in my core, swirling around and changing me. Whether or not I admit it, whether or not I deal with it, I have changed.
I have lost something.
And I don’t yet know what I’ve gained.
But, for the first time since this whole thing started, I know I have gained something. Somehow, my life has been enriched by this experience. Somehow.
I just don’t see it yet.
Have you read the Connection Manifesto? It tells the story of why there is so much hurt and sadness in the world, and how we can heal through connection.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I really want to respond with something empathetic and enlightening, but I can’t think of anything that doesn’t sound condesending. It sounds like you’re in a really hard place right now and have been for awhile. Thank you for sharing.
Precious one, thank you for sharing.
No one knows exactly how you feel, but many of us have our own sometimes similar experiences and your ability to be so clear and honest about where you are right now and show us through your presence how we continue on in spite of/because of/ in light of is such a gift. Such. A. Gift.
(NB This isn’t necessarily what you meant, but it’s what I thought after reading.)
Oh yeah, sometimes, in order to make room for something to be added to our lives, something else is lost. I don’t like it, I’m not ok with it, but it kinda makes sense in an annoying way. Maybe, just maybe, if I let myself be ok with losing something old then I’ll be able to move forwards a little easier.
.-= James | Dancing Geek´s last blog ..Doing what you want vs Being miserable =-.
Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out what we’ve gained when we know we’ve lost something. Some of what I’ve gained after losses have taken me years to realize.
You’ve been through a lot and it’s understandable that there is a big change – and a big loss. But life doesn’t leave us empty for long. I know that there is something wonderful to fill that void, and now that you’ve recognized that it’s missing, the thing to fill it is on the horizon.
.-= Courtney´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.