Happiness After Loss

​When Chloe died I said I would give this thing five years.  If I was still in this much pain then....then...then what!?  I didn't know. I just knew I couldn't live like this.  It's almost like I was giving some kind of ultimatum to the universe or God.  By not living fully I was showing them what they did to me. Oh, but I knew that was all really my own limited perspective.  The universe radiates love, I just couldn't feel it at the time.

So I hit the five year mark in October and here I am.  I will always have moments of ache, collapse and longing.  But I am also feeling like I've stepped into a deeper existence, propelled to follow the passions of my heart.  I became a horse owner and love my time just hanging out in the barn.  I started dancing again and have found my way into my own Art therapy.  On my birthday I purchased a Native American flute and am attempting to find some beauty in it, although right now I'm working through the "squeaking" phase.  

However, I still struggle with allowing myself total, unbridled happiness.  I know Chloe wants me to enter into blissful joy, but every time I fell myself opening up I hit this wall that says, "you can't be that happy, there is still sorrow in your heart."  Yes, there is sorrow. I loved Chloe too much for that sorrow to ever go away.  But can sorrow and happiness exist side by side?  That is my next challenge.  To deliberately and strategically step into happiness, to pursue it.  To fill my life with more of what I love.  When I face that wall of sorrow I will simply say, "I honor, love and hold you sorrow, but please open up and let me pass. I have some joy to grab."