ABC006 – Grieving what could have been
Words: 530
Three quotes by (or at least attributed to) the poet Rumi:
The deeper the grief, the more radiant the love.
Do not grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom.
For a long time now—say, roughly seven years—I've been grieving. What I lost was a version of me, the life I thought would make me happy, and someone who was dear to me. Fate or mere circumstance led me elsewhere, and I don't think I ever quite accepted the loss of what's now long gone.
Yet in those years I've had moments, nay, periods of joy. I experienced redemption, and even surpassing previous heights. Life isn't linear, and I now know that the uncertainties of life can bring pleasant surprises.
Today I had a fleeting moment of grief. It's now a dull and faint echo compared to what it used to be, but it was there. It's weakened because so much has happened in the last several years, that I don't feel the appeal of anger or bargaining. Nor the numbing effects of denial or depression. I've come to accept it all, after all.
So why do I still have that pause? The quotes by Rumi offer insight.
Of the first: it's because what I lost was no small matter to me. I knew what was important to me, because having lost it I still miss it. This insight can offer direction for me.
Not that such direction needs to be a reclamation of the past; it really is gone. But Rumi's second quote suggests that new forms of the things I lost can emerge. Indeed, they have. I have met new companions and taken up new quests and found new joys in my life. They're not exactly the same as the originals, but that doesn't diminish what they offer.
And so at last, I recognize the wisdom contained in the third quote. Grief can function as a compass, because it's our soul reacting to the world when it feels out of tune. The pain of grief is one's heart saying, "this doesn't feel right." It is quite easy to wallow in grieving. It may even be necessary. But grieving itself cannot last forever. One day, the grief can be repurposed to search out joys in life.
I neither kept nor got what was important to me back in 2019. That I write this today shows that life can go on. And I have. And I'm even proud of myself! Now remains some crucial questions: What can my life be if I truly let go of the grief that burdens me? What remains is a negligent amount, but it can still disrupt my day. Can I let it go for good? And, having glanced at this wisdom, can I approach future letdowns and losses with grace? To accept that merely knowing what I want in life does not mean I automatically deserve it?
These are questions I mean to sit with for a while, in the process of repurposing my grief.