I have my first real day of unemployment because last week I had a terrible cluster migraine. I am still feeling the effects of it, but I am doing better today. I feel like I got more done today than I did last week, and I have a better idea of what I want to get done this week than I did last week. However, I am still feeling worried and scared going into a new adventure.
The strangest part for me is that I have a couple of friends whose spouses have passed away. They are also going through transitions. One of them moved and is starting a new job and the other one is getting ready to move. It makes me think about how we view death.
When I was growing up and for most of my life, I always thought of it as something negative because it involved pain. However, the older I get the more I realize that it’s the pain that hurts, not death. It’s the loss of a loved one that hurts. The actual death is just a transition and a change that takes place, just like birth is a transition as well. Everyone is born, grows, and dies. It is perfectly natural. The difficult part is the pain.
I’m still not sure how it works. If I did, I would be better able to comfort my friends who lost their spouses. I just don’t know. I think maybe it is part of what we need to experience. It might sound crazy, but when I was feeling panic attacks, pain would always help. When I look back at that time, I realize that when I had the panic attacks, I got lost in the fear and in time, and pain would always bring me back to the here and now. It would take me out of my nightmares and let me know that I was real and alive. So, maybe, as human beings, we need to experience pain in our lives. We need to experience pain when we are born, when we love, and when we die. It’s not a punishment or God being cruel. It’s a reminder to tell us what a miracle being alive really is and what a miracle feeling anything at all, especially love is.
I know I don’t want to hurt, but if I must go through pain may God be with me and may it remind me how beautiful life really is.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
