Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. I mean, do not be disturbed because of your imperfections, and always rise up bravely from a fall. I'm glad that you make daily a new beginning; there is no better means of progress in the spiritual life than to be continually beginning afresh.
I've said it once and I'll say it again - I absolutely despise that there is no one way to deal with this.
One of the hardest things about losing Randi has been that I just want someone to tell me how to fix it. I want someone to look at me and say "do this, this, and this, and everything will be okay." I hate that I never know what the day is going to bring me. I hate that it sometimes feels like it's getting worse and not better. I hate that it takes so long. I hate that I sometimes think to myself that I have this down now, I am dealing with it, I am okay.
One of the girls that I work with told me about this group called The Dinner Table. It started as a group of friends who all had one thing in common - they had all lost a parent. They came together, talked, and found comfort in the fact that they all had this devastating hole in themselves. And they wanted to open that comfort up to others. So now The Dinner Table is in a handful of major cities all across the US, and you literally just get set up with a group of eight to ten people who have all lost a loved one. And you talk. Or you don't.
I had a place at one of the tables last week. And the entire week leading up to that day, I was feeling good. I was productive at work for the first time in a while, my friendships were all in good standing, I was signing a new lease to my house.... Everything felt normal. Then the day that I was supposed to show up to my assigned table, I froze. I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Is this me failing? Should I still show up to my therapy appointments even after a good day? Should I willingly choose to surround myself with other sad people? Will they even be sad, or am I picturing this room of broken people just to give myself an excuse to back out?
I think that my newest and most important mantra is going to be that no matter what excuses I can come up with, there is never an excuse good enough to stop working on myself. I mean that in a universal way, not just as it pertains to working through my loss. I think Randi would want me to continuously better myself and be proud of who I am, and she would want me to make her proud, too.
There will probably never be a day that I am completely okay, but I give myself permission to be happy through this. And I think that's a good start.
One of the hardest things about losing Randi has been that I just want someone to tell me how to fix it. I want someone to look at me and say "do this, this, and this, and everything will be okay." I hate that I never know what the day is going to bring me. I hate that it sometimes feels like it's getting worse and not better. I hate that it takes so long. I hate that I sometimes think to myself that I have this down now, I am dealing with it, I am okay.
One of the girls that I work with told me about this group called The Dinner Table. It started as a group of friends who all had one thing in common - they had all lost a parent. They came together, talked, and found comfort in the fact that they all had this devastating hole in themselves. And they wanted to open that comfort up to others. So now The Dinner Table is in a handful of major cities all across the US, and you literally just get set up with a group of eight to ten people who have all lost a loved one. And you talk. Or you don't.
I had a place at one of the tables last week. And the entire week leading up to that day, I was feeling good. I was productive at work for the first time in a while, my friendships were all in good standing, I was signing a new lease to my house.... Everything felt normal. Then the day that I was supposed to show up to my assigned table, I froze. I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Is this me failing? Should I still show up to my therapy appointments even after a good day? Should I willingly choose to surround myself with other sad people? Will they even be sad, or am I picturing this room of broken people just to give myself an excuse to back out?
I think that my newest and most important mantra is going to be that no matter what excuses I can come up with, there is never an excuse good enough to stop working on myself. I mean that in a universal way, not just as it pertains to working through my loss. I think Randi would want me to continuously better myself and be proud of who I am, and she would want me to make her proud, too.
There will probably never be a day that I am completely okay, but I give myself permission to be happy through this. And I think that's a good start.