Ever thought about the struggle of a difficult moment in your life? Ever wondered how to feel after such a time? I have. You are not alone.
This has been plaguing me lately. How do you move on from something that has totally turned your life into a turbulent tumble of jumbled ramblings and tearful goodbyes? The answer is...I don't have an answer. But I am working on it, which - if that isn't good enough for you, don't worry, because most days it isn't good enough for me either. It is placating at best. I've thought lately, and when I say lately I mean tonight when I saw Charlie St. Cloud, that life puts you through the ups and downs just so when you get out you are so changed that you don't know how to go about the life you lived before hand.
To be honest with all of you, if you ever thought you weren't changed, you're lying to yourself.
The only thing that changes during a time of hardship, specifically a death of any kind, is you. The things you used to do never change, nor do the things you owned or the life you lived. The one thing that changes is the person you used to be and I suppose that is the profound beauty. If you ever want to know how much something doesn't mean to you, have your world shaken and shattered and then go back to trying to find your place amongst the clothes, hobbies, friends and relationships you held pre-shatter.
The shaking and shattering does just that, shakes and shatters you and teaches you that you can be shaken and shattered but what it does not teach you is how to rebuild and move on. It does not teach you that every once in a while you will break down at the mention of their name. Every once in a while you will shake at the simple thought of that time in your life. That you may need to escape in letters to the ones who will never read them, or lose yourself in music that reminds you of them.
A man I admire once told me that I was the strongest woman he'd ever known because when I went through a hard time, I didn't break for all to see and I did not give up on the friends who needed me. I sort of stared at him blankly, a loss for words, and wondered. Finally getting the sentences together and working up the courage to throw them off my tongue all I could think of was "Are you insane? I am a wreck." We chuckled but there was nothing else more true. "Chelsea is gone." One moment in time, three simple words cut to the core of me and ripped it apart within seconds and to rebuild such a beautiful masterpiece of wreckage was going to take time.
Immediately I looked back at the friend I admired and said thank you, thank you for being so good and so beautiful to me because it is more important for you to see the person I've hoped to be than the person I truly am inside. If you were to see the leftovers of something so personal, you would wonder how I'm still standing. To which he simply said "I don't believe you. You are stronger than you think, believe that."
This is not about personal strength or personal growth because I have grown, of course I have, but to me being strong is not about growing from a hard situation, it is about accepting it. Being strong is pushing through it, breaking down in the middle of worship, finding the air has left the room in the middle of a class, finding comfort in the warm arms of a blessing at 1am when all the crying has made you nauseas and you can't put together coherent sentences. Being strong is being every part of what makes one weak.
until next time (:
until next time (:
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