Empty Space

A few months ago, I had another little awakening.  I had a small trauma that caused me to look at my life again in a way that invited me to question, what am I doing?  The trauma wasn’t anything big, it was a simple conversation. It invoked so many emotions and sadness. 

It brought up questions.  I needed to see things more clearly, so I made a decision.  I don’t usually recommend making decisions in emotional moments.  I took about 5 days to consider what had transpired in me over that time. I decided to pull myself out of every commitment I possibly could.  

I decided to be home more, to commit to myself more and to commit to my kids more; not that I hadn’t been, just with renewed focus now.  In the past few months I’ve withdrawn from nearly everything that I have usually engaged in.  

I also pulled away from things I found to try to keep myself occupied.   Many of these were good things, but maybe only good for a season or maybe not ever. For now, I needed some space. During this time I have opened up space.  

I opened up space that I didn’t want to get filled with anything else, with the goal of just keeping it empty.  That’s done a lot for me; and honestly, I haven’t enjoyed it.  I have, though, gained a new appreciation for defense mechanisms that feel like they protect.  

I have felt that in this new space I’ve committed to keep open, when I don’t fill it, I feel it.  It’s a lot of overwhelming space that I instinctively want to try to fill immediately.  I have done this previously, so I don’t have to feel it anymore. 

Yet, in the depths of feeling, I’ve come to a new deepness of peace.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been more sad and depressed and unmotivated and just sad these last few months.  Even feeling like I wish it were me that was gone, not Grant.  But then I thought, I don’t want to leave these boys like he did.  

I do want to live, and I’m choosing life.  The other aspects of all this time I’ve spent in emptiness not filled, are the many things I have felt and how I’ve learned to live with it.  Not just to be alive, but to really live, like Grant always said he did; until what he did took his life. 

 I’m gaining an awareness in living deeply; not with joy, not with happiness, not with getting what I want and having what I want.  I’ve done those things.  Momentary happiness, is just that, momentary. All the things I’ve tried to use to distract myself, leave me in the end without comfort. 

And so, feeling into this empty space, where sometimes I just sit and do nothing, accomplish nothing and be nothing;  I feel ok.  I realize that I can’t run from it. I can’t distract myself from it. I can’t get over it. I just live with it.  

And from this place I have two choices: One is to live with it till it kills me or two is to live a beautiful life with it till I die.  Those are two very different choices coming from the same space.  In the end, I’ll still end up dead.  

The first will be a slow and painful death that squeezes the life out of me.  The other, will be a life full, until life is taken from me. In this one, I will have chosen, accepted and become more.  The second is what I’m going to choose.  

It takes time to learn to be with pain, and choose to live in spite of pain; to learn to live fully with it.  I’m still somewhere in the middle, but now I know where I want to end up. It gives me hope, which is the one thing that you lose when you realize that it never will go away.