Struggle and Acceptance

There is something comforting in listening to the winds blow as a storm rolls through, and yet those same winds remind me of how alone I often feel. It reminds me I long to share the daily experiences in life. The changes in the weather, the world as I experience it, the little and big in life.  

Therefore, I am torn between accepting my solitude and knowing that the experiences are mine alone, and wrestling with them. If the winds are blowing and I alone hear them, don't they still blow like crazy? If I laugh, loud and long, by myself is not the laughter still valid? Where do I find the peace of acceptance? Why do I lose sight of the fact that this is a chapter of life, not the whole of it?

I have a thousand blessings, and still miss those blessings lost to life changes I never asked for. I suspect that is because I still look back at what was and what no longer is. I am both in the past and out of it. If I can not find a peaceful understanding, a closure, how do I at least find gratitude?

I have to wonder if struggle is universal. I have to wonder if the gifts in this chapter of life are the very solitude I try to push back, and the acceptance that is slow to take root. It is what I have and don't want, and also what I dislike and need to embrace. It's like desperately wanting pizza and always getting Chinese food. My needs are met, but my wants are in another drive thru. May I find acceptance and sustenance, if not joy, in my fortune cookie. Pizza will come another day.

So how to move with the storms and find the grace involved. It's somewhere in the letting go and the letting God of life. It's reminding myself I'm not entirely alone even when I feel like it. It's trusting an outcome that feels miles down the road. It's reminding myself that feelings aren't always facts. I feel like this part of life may never end, and that is not the truth. I won't be in this same place in life tomorrow, just today. I only need to do today, today. 

So today I listen to the wind and marvel at it. I laugh out loud, and own the pleasure. I know I'm okay right where I am, and I trust that growth is taking place. I can breathe and release. I can embrace that life is hard and also that I am strong. I can speak my truth, share my thoughts and count my blessings.