Crossing Hurdles

Since my loss I'm taken aback by all the "first times", all the hurdles one crosses in life and on a grief journey. I know, that all of life includes first time hurdles, but loss ramps up the intensity, the poignancy of them. I am acutely aware of life choices and experiences now. Frankly, I'd like to go back to being rather blissfully unaware. If you are in that stage of life count your blessings. Give thanks for the innocence, do the happy dance for simplicity. Now, I also am going to give thanks for losing said innocence, and for the lack of simplicity in my life. Gratitude embraces all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

I am where I am. I can't go back to who I was, and I'm not sure I'd want to...except for the pain that brought me here. I wish I could have prevented it, or fixed it, or changed it. This new me is still evolving, still taking the hurdles with less that stellar grace, with tons of questions with no answers, with one step forward, two steps back. I should come with a warning sign: caution  figuring life out and prone to weeping. Calm, cool and collected one moment, but watch out the next. Knows there are hurdles ahead, unable to anticipate their location. Or, caution - hormonal spill pending.

I had the absolute pleasure of attending my favorite concert of all this week. Tran-Siberian Orchestra is just the best, my happy place. I was delighted to be going and couldn't wait to experience it. Enter a caution sign, tears up ahead. It was everything I hoped it would be, and I was a weepy mess. You see, I am not the same person I was last time I saw them. I was thrilled to be excited, passionately excited, for the first time in over two years. Progress, right? Yes, and sometimes progress doesn't look like you'd expect. Sometimes it's wrapped up in sorrow and tied with a tearful bow. Sometimes it's a mix of emotions hard to fathom much less explain. 

Next time I see them, and I will...I'm hoping it will be easier. Well, at least different, and beautiful in another way. It was amazing, even though the hurdles snuck up on me and I temporarily stumbled on them. I still came out touched by their talent and music, humbled by the experience and stronger on the other side. I guess that is the purpose of life hurdles, to get stronger on the other side.