RunSingTeach

I picked up my book, In the Midst of Winter, for the first time in a while yesterday. I was tired, cranky, and felt a general sense of malaise. I wanted something–I didn’t know for what I was looking. I turned to the summer-fall section entitled, “Grief’s Wisdom” and found this lovely bit from Albert Camus. I read it a few times. I felt a pang of guilt at the phrase, “the loved one obstructed a whole corner of the possible.” Is that ok–to accept that there is/was possibility I would not have seen if life had stayed on the same track?

Back when “it” all happened, a friend said to me, “If this happened to me, I would pack my kids and my bags and be out of here. If you decided to do that, I would not hold it against you.” That has stuck with me. While it wasn’t immediate, I did pack my bags and get away. But I wasn’t running away. I could have found contentment and healing in my home place. I ran towards the uncovered possibility that had always been part of the “plan.”

So I look to the next line, “Freedom emerges from weariness.” Freedom is not forgetting. It is not closing a hole. It is the acknowledgment that forward motion is right and good. It is not freedom from love or memory; it is freedom from the daily in and out of grief. And a lot of the time lately, I feel free and even happy. As my weariness dissipates into fits and spurts rather than a steady stream, I hold onto this freedom with a vice grip for fear if I loosen my grip, it too will slip away.