A lesson not to scratch the itch
December 29, 2018

There is something special about the last week of December of each year. There are moments of reflection, flooding quick thoughts of past things done, fleeting feelings of guilt for goals not reached. And best of all, then a white wash of peace overcomes you and you realize that your plate has been cleaned and you get to retrieve a new plate to fill it up with memories, moments, and even drama.

News channels flash through momentous events, taking you back to where you were when that happened or what side of the debate you were on-that it provoked. Gossip shows flash through memorials of past actors, actresses and people in the entertainment business, sometimes remembering someone that had more of an impact than being on the boob tube. Facebook invades your account and decides to recap what they believe was the best part of your past year, creating a video mostly of the worse pictures of you that you did not realize you posted.

Where are the memorials of the children shot and killed? Where are the video accolades for the heroes through the year? The soldiers that keep a small town in a far away country safe? The police and firefighters that run into danger and save someone’s grandmother, sister or your best friend who finds herself in a domestic violence relationship? Estrange….to remove or to keep at a distance, to turn away in feeling or affection.

All of these things happen to me just like they happen to everyone else. But my last week of reflection of this past year involved something deeper and insightful……I tend to always focus on where I have been and where I am going. What did I do that I would have done differently? Where did I lose track of what I learned the previous year? Am I repeating the same lesson? Am I still on my path for my life’s lesson of inner balance and love?

I slipped this year and I tripped many times. I forgot about the lesson I learned from the previous year and I relived the emotional pain that I had convinced myself I had let go of on my last New Year’s. I had hope. I had faith that something different could happen. I had so many other great things happening at the first of the year that I opened myself up to the possibility of having something different with a loved one. Because, I mistakenly believed they wanted to be in my life again and share time with me and that they loved me for who I was and what I had become.

They say in heaven that there is no concept of time. What seems like a minute or an hour on our plain is a fleeting flash of light up there. Twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred sixty-five days and five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes is a lot of time. A lot of time to obsess over trivial things. A lot of time to focus on wrongs and a lot of time to have self-doubt in yourself whether it be your personal life, work life, or family life. But, it’s also a lot of time to play in the snow, dance naked through your house, take a walk in the park with your dog, or sit and have coffee with a friend for an hour. Or, best of all, slip into a large bubble bath with your husband with candles flickering around you, laughing about stupid thoughts or things, playfully having a water fight.

Being on a journey of self-awareness is tricky. There are things that will make you stumble and fall. It’s easy to misread a gesture, having blind faith something different is going to happen. Such as the infamous shtick with Charlie Brown, his blind faith and desire to kick that ball and make it soar only for Lucy to rip it away with smugness. Reminding him in the worse way that external factors and people can influence your outcome and your life let alone those precious twelve months. Like an itch that you just must scratch, you cave for the familiar reaction to do what you know versus doing what you should.

The hardest thing in my opinion is to say goodbye. Goodbye to a pet, goodbye to a job, goodbye to a loved one, goodbye to a house. Sometimes, you think you are saying goodbye, but you really aren’t. If you say goodbye to someone but you continue to be affected by their actions towards you, you are not really saying goodbye. If you say you are done with someone, but you always open up a letter or email they send you only to feel complete utter loneliness after you read it, then you really have not said goodbye to them and you have let them control your life. If you have exciting news and call that someone, having hope that they will share in your excitement, then you really have not said goodbye to them. You have blind faith and hope and it gets the best of us.  At the end of the day, everyone just wants to believe. Believe in the impossible, believe in the underdog, and believe in love.

Being loved and accepted by others can be fickle. We don’t always like people and their traits. We all have traits that rub people the wrong way. It might be the way they say something to us. It might be what they say to us. Or it might be what they don’t say to us, like I do love you and who you are and I really do want you to be part of my life. Unfortunately, in my estrangement, it’s all of the above. However, words for the most part are usually just words to me, at least that is what I try and tell myself when someone irks me. Its actions that speak volume. It’s where the rubber does meet the road.

During those slips and trips of blind hope, only to be followed with emptiness, can be cured by searching the internet with great quotes and inspirational thoughts and even funny memes. I will say though, its really just a band aid for the cut that has just occurred. But, they are helpful to refocus you on what you know to be true.

Being estranged from a loved one is an injury to the heart. It sits below the external skin-your personal shield from the elements, underneath the twenty-four ribs-your personal shield of armor, underneath mounds of tissue-your last guard of protection.  And then, you find a beating red organ that pumps blood through your body, giving it life. Through all those obstacles, how is it so easy to get to the heart and be hurt?

It’s hard to believe that this organ can have physical pain due to emotions because it has so many other important tasks to focus on. When something shocking happens, you feel a quick cramp in your heart. When something excites you, it starts to flutter. When something hurtful is done to you, you feel a piercing sting. And my husband likes to ask, when he runs his hand up my leg, what does your Fitbit say is your pumping heart score?

There are a lot of books and articles about estrangement. You can get a lot of advice about it. You can find articles that support your truth to say goodbye and you can find articles that will guilt you into having blind hope and guilt or encourage you to scratch that itch. Everyone though has their own journey they have to take and lesson’s they have to accomplish. Mine is to love myself enough to give myself permission to have standards on having positive people in my life who will love me unconditionally. I am fortunate enough to say that 96% of the people I share my life with know me, love me and we have incredible connections and experiences together.

Sometimes those with whom you are estranged with want you to believe it’s something about you. But more times than not, it really is about them. You must listen to what your heart and body told you because you were the one that likely walked away. There was a turning point, a pivotal moment, when you realized that being in this person’s life causes you physical pain to your heart and being. The only way you can heal your injury is to seal the wound, close up the chest, suture the skin and allow your heart to pump and give you life again. And that is just what I am going to do this next year.