Ch--ch-ch-CHANGE

I type into Google “2013 year of change.”

I return such entries as:

2013: A year of Change for you?

If you experienced dramatic success this year tell us…

2013 Is Year Zeroe for Climate Change

The victories of 2012 demand we double down in the fight against global warming.

2013 Was the Year of Women at the Box Office

Amy Chan: 2013 A Year to Change Your Karma

 I clicked on the last one and read “Be Open. Judgment can blind you from seeing the greatest beauty people.” And “Say yes to adventure.”

In a few weeks, I will wave goodbye to the most difficult year of my life.

I’ve been reading Catching Fire, the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  I’d read the first book and it got me thinking about some of the themes in the books, the theme of the quell and the reaping.

This past for me has been a deep reaping of change.  I am comforted to know that I am not the only one looking forward to 2014.  2013— the year of the snake, how apt that we shed the old skin and put on something new.

I’ve been thinking of how so many others I know have been experiencing great changes this past year, “I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered, I don’t have a friend who feels at ease…”  these words speak to me of the intensity that 2013 has brought for those I love. 

These difficult times we’ve been through and as they continue…I thought that maybe I would catalog them, but then I realized I don’t want to do that. 

I want to focus on the miracles of 2013.

I hold on to this belief that life will get better.  Many have lost parents, jobs, children; losses small and large, several friends have gone through divorces, grandparents have passed away, a friend recently released from incarceration, another with a very ill infant, all with struggles so real so deep.

In each one I see strength. The amazing human ability to perservere, to keep striving for something better, this hope we hold in our hearts is worth more cataloging than all the sorrows combined.

How in moments over the past few months, I will spontaneously break out in tears and spend twenty minutes or more in the bathroom at work.  Waiting until my sobs subside, or I stand at the sink washing a dish, tears drop down out of nowhere onto my hands.  I can now welcome these moments embrace them, and accept the fact I am more vulnerable now than I have ever been in my entire life. I know that I am not alone.

We’ve got this great ability to shoulder loss, to reach out and love each other.  

Because love is the only way to get through any real great loss in life. 

I think of my pets. And perhaps we could say that they don’t really love, but I don’t believe that.  Animals have a way of communicating on a primal level, they do not judge.  They are open to the beauty in all people.  I think that is the “inner beauty” not some outer thing that is going to crumble and fade.  I need to remind myself of this when I get so caught up on the outward nature of others.

Some are like me, they struggle with the details in search of a larger purpose in life, the ability to serve others (or at least make a difference in another’s life.) And if you’re me, the struggle to nurture my self without being completely self-absorbed or selfish.

I always have hated the question,”Where do you see yourself in five years.” Because I always wanted to say, “Well, I just want to see myself enjoying life.”  But that is the wrong answer because I got fired after giving that answer to someone.

Everyone has been telling me not to take on too much, to allow myself to grieve.  I am impatient.  That I have to get used to a “new normal”.

Join a gym?

Give to charity?

Have a baby?

Get married?

 I  wasn’t “normal” before taking care of Kate and watching her die, why should I be any more normal now?

 So I’ve given myself six self-absorbing months to search my own depths and see what lies within there.

More changes…

I’ve started acupuncture

Spin class for my rage of emotions

Meditations with Deepak Chopra

EFT(emotional freedom technique) with my essential oils

“I’m in the here and now and I’m meditating but still I’m suffering.  But that’s my problem.” –Van Morrison, Enlightenment.

I tell myself forgive, nuture your spirit, embrace the changes.

It is alright to suffer…because it is human and real and true.

Many is the time I’ve been mistaken and many times confused

yes and I’ve often felt forsaken and certainly misused

but I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m just weary to my bones

still you don’t expect to be bright and bon vivant so far away from home

so far away from home

and I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered

I don’t have a friend who feels at ease

I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered or driven to its’ knees

but it’s alright it’s alright for we’ve lived so well so long

still when I think of the road were traveling on

I wonder whats gone wrong

I cant help but wonder whats gone wrong

and I dreamed I was dying

I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly

and looking back down at me smiled reassuredly

and I dreamed I was flying

and high up above my eyes could clearly see

the statue of liberty sailing away to sea

and I dreamed I was flying

Oh we come on the ship they call the Mayflower

we come on the ship that sailed the moon

we come in the ages most uncertain hours and sing an American tune

And its’ alright it’s alright it’s alright

you can be forever blessed

still tomorrow’s gonna be another working day and I’m trying to get some rest

that’s all I’m trying to get some rest.