The normal stuff

A new year does deserve a new post. But I have been in a writer's block for a while now so just going to go with the flow. This is not my first post of the year. But this did start as that. 

This time the New Year did not bring about the same joy so it was difficult write a post of a new start. Sometimes we don't want to let go of what is getting left behind with the past.

Sometimes new beginnings are not about wanting everything to be different and new and stretching oneself. Sometimes it's just a booster to continue to the next right step. Sometimes that's all that we can do. And it's enough.

As I often mention, normalcy is underrated. There is great value in our routine. A normal family evening or weekend. We just need to realize that.  The power of salt over the overrated spices. The power of comfort food over highly acclaimed dishes. A walk in the sunlight. The feel of the morning wintery air. A parents' care. A loved one's touch. The softness and trust of a child. The belogingness to a set of people or a firm. A reassuring snore. A much used blanket. 

 So this year, lets cherish some of that underrated yet so precious normal stuff.

Grief by Gwen Flowers

Grief doesn't go away. It just dims enough for you to continue daily stuff and then pops up to remind you that it never left you. It is there not just in all the big moments but also in missing small daily conversations, some shared word, a sweet memory or just the onset of a morn. To me, it brings about a feeling of being unteethered. The loss of a validation of all I do. The direction of life. The constant refrain of a question that now can life ever get better or is apex lost with the person.

This poem by Gwen Flowers brings out this do clearly so am jotting it down here.

Grief

I had my own notion of grief.

I thought it was the sad time

That followed the death of someone you love.

And you had to push through it

To get to the other side.

But I’m learning there is no other side.

There is no pushing through.

But rather,

There is absorption.

Adjustment.

Acceptance.

And grief is not something you complete

But rather, you endure.

Grief is not a task to finish

And move on,

But an element of yourself –

An alteration of your being.

A new way of seeing.

A new dimension of self.

by Gwen Flowers