This morning, I woke up crying. I do every December 8th. Usually, it’s after a vivid dream of getting somewhere a moment too late or the inability to grasp something just out of reach. Last night I had a new version of a recent dream that Baby Girl was falling and her friend caught her. In last night’s dream, I was supposed to catch her and couldn’t get to her (fortunately for dream Baby Girl, her friend caught her again!) You don’t have to be a Freudian to interpret these dreams, but while my dreams may argue, I actually find so much peace and love in my sadness.
To be clear, I wish I hadn’t had to find the beauty in my grief. I miss the version of myself that I once was. That « before » me felt lighter, freer, expectant. Decisions and simple tasks didn’t feel hard or disproportionately weighty. I was naïve in so many ways, with boundless hope and unfettered joy. It didn’t occur to me to not put things off until tomorrow, because time was predictable and plentiful. Not that there weren’t hard times, disappointments and losses, only that I possessed the optimistic confidence that good always wins in the end. The shift isn’t one I think about often, but I do recognize it’s presence. It seems like boundaries and limits just appeared where once there were none—or maybe I finally saw the perimeters that were always there.
While these boundaries are limiting, I think there are some really amazing things that come from them. Often people who experience great loss live life with an eye on the fleetingness of it-they find an urgency to love more, celebrate bigger, try harder, show more compassion, forgive quicker, and linger a little longer. They also are more likely to limit time spent with people who drain them, are more selective with who they let into their circle, and deny access to those who chip away at their hard-faught joy.
