![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/lostandfound.jpg\" "\\"lostandfound\\"")
<\/a>I enjoy the quiet of an empty house.\u00a0 It used to make me uneasy-the void of activity and the hum of appliances; but now, I have found a great comfort in the quiet. Silence is one of the few vibrations I can tolerate these days. I have become overly sensitive to big noise. Crowds of people make me uneasy.\u00a0 It is the overload of scattered energy I can not tolerate.\u00a0 The ends of my nerves are still raw. I have never been one for crowds.\u00a0 Oddly enough, my years in Manhattan, surrounded by thousands, never bothered me.\u00a0 I found it comforting.<\/p>\nWeird.<\/p>\n
I know.<\/p>\n
It is impossible to describe the layers of complicated grief. I do not want to try any more.\u00a0 The layers are here. I know these layers well and have worn them ragged. Grief brought me to this new place of being.\u00a0 This is who I am now. Grief, in all her complexities has come to stay and will forever be the place of new beginning.\u00a0 I have discovered grief is like the phases of life that shape us:<\/p>\n
Summers.<\/p>\n
High school.<\/p>\n
College.<\/p>\n
Adventure.<\/p>\n
Living on our own.<\/p>\n
Loving.<\/p>\n
Partnering.<\/p>\n
Parenting.<\/p>\n
Loss.<\/p>\n
All those edges of becoming are woven into being.\u00a0 These new layers are the fabric of my life. This life. This letting go is allowing me to appreciate my loss of control, lack of sleep and the continual hum of woe that plays on repeat.\u00a0 It is a slippery slope to be standing in between and betwix what once was and what is.\u00a0 But, here I stand.<\/p>\n
This is my life life now. I am here.<\/p>\n
I.Am.Here.<\/p>\n
I said that out-loud yesterday-and for the first time I felt a twinge of strength muster up from the innards of my new self.<\/p>\n
I felt the welcoming of something new, a sense of purpose, a twinkle of light -the scent of hope.\u00a0 I opened the door to this woman I have come to know.\u00a0 I found her to be more accepting, more grounded in the here and now, less reactive, open to receiving, and certainly more vulnerable.\u00a0 I found her to be finished with trying to solve the puzzle, content to leave the missing pieces where they are, lost along the way. I found how fierce this woman is guarding her time, well-being, authenticity and the capacity to love out loud. She is fierce with her gracious, broken heart.\u00a0 This woman, learning to bend, found the value of space and time, rather, an appreciation for how little time we all have-by choice, circumstance or consequence.<\/p>\n
This woman I found, let go of what was.\u00a0 This woman learned to muzzle the noise, that covered the pain, that softened the blow, that pushed through, held on, over extended, underestimated what was.\u00a0 That woman I found, got a little brighter, a lot stronger and ready to be.<\/p>\n
Me.<\/p>\n