As I peel back the layers of experiences collected over the years, am I peeling back the layers of memories I have collected and returning to the original? Reliving memories with each item I touch, a daunting task. Is that why I look at a trip to Nova Scotia with such unsettled anticipation?
Another step which holds the mirror of my new reality, clearly and harshly.
The labels flood my brain, single mom, widow and alone. Not at all the reality I had dreamed of as a child and I lived a dream like childhood, not a care in the world. Am I returning to that shy childlike state, which hid from the world, filling my days with outdoor adventures and discoveries?
Will my sense of obligation override my desire to revisit specific places and memories?
I feel stuck between the past and reconciling the present.
Is this yet another step in my process of letting go and acceptance? I must lean in and welcome what comes next, whether or not it brings closure.
Now, if I am getting real with myself, a huge part of the anticipation is how do I reconcile my emotions when it comes to Dad’s death and I was not there. I know in my heart the Dad I grew up admiring and loving was no longer present, however that sense of obligation creeps in and can overwhelm rational thought.
How to go back home knowing I will not see or hug him ever again?
That’s it, tears flow now…
Memories are a strange part of life, we push out the unsettling ones and dwell on the happy ones, tending to gloss them over as perfection.
It is those unsettling one that let you know dig deeper, take a closer look, work through your emotions, what triggered these feelings and where the largest growth happens.
I have felt detached from my family ever since D’s death and perhaps even resentful no one was here to support me through that unknown darkness. I own these feeling as I did not ask for them to come and assumed, as we all do in families, they would just know what I needed. Blame is a wasted unproductive emotion and I will not dwell there.
Even as I grow older the deep glimpses of me as a child come to the surface and insecurity spills over. That childhood sense of wanting to belong and be loved.
A Dad is that first male figure you are shaped by and time with him limited at my young age, the need to please became a habit, and to this day hard to shake at times.
Obligation, a sense I struggle with when I think of home. I do not have this in my present life at all. I have build an incredible network of friends who accept and champion me.
What a delicate balance to try to communicate with the generational, spiritual, and religious and cultural differences a family holds individually and is shaped by.
Is this my growth, accepting and revealing my flaws to release the power they once held over me?
So I will head to my childhood home, feel deeply, and be present in all which bubbles up.
How do you face your flaws?
Blessings and Much Aloha…
Redefining Grief 