Shot through the heart.

This has been a tough month in a tough year. I feel like curling up in a fetal position and wailing like a baby.

Difficult, demoralizing events at work. Cancer. Death. My uncle died. My cat, Ed, is dying. I’m acting as a sounding board to both my closest friends while they talk about chemo and hair loss and surgery.

It’s as though someone’s shot a hole clean through my heart.

What can loss teach me?

I screwed up my figures for my bank account and used money I didn’t have – costing me money I don’t have to spare. The NSF fees are double what I actually bought, cost.

Tonight, I finally just sat down and cried. I just didn’t have another drop of strength to hold it together.

Good grief. What is unfolding? What is happening that requires such brutal kneading and shaping to pull itself into being?

***

Just Breathe.

So, I remind myself to breathe. To breathe in and fill up my lungs. I remind myself to watch my breath as it clouds the cool night air when I go outside to see the moon, the stars. I walk in circles trying to ground myself, trying to remember how I got to this particular place with these particular sorrows.

I walk and walk. Nothing makes sense. I walk and drink up the moon sky & the slow clouds smeared on the horizon. Then, for a couple hours, I valiantly try sleep. I try sleep, but nothing settles, and I end up getting up.

So, I finish grading papers and put the semester to bed. I sit in the center of my joylessness, my sadness, my despair. I just sit with it. Nothing else to do.

This, too, shall pass.

We’re living in dark times, but the light will return.

This, too, shall pass.

© 2014  Shavawn M. Berry All rights reserved

Feel free to share this post with others, as long as you include the copyright information and keep the whole posting intact.

If you like this piece please share it with others. You can like me on Facebook  or Twitter to see more of my writing and my spiritual journey on my website at www.shavawnmberry.com.