I live alone and for the most part, I enjoy it.  My job has me interacting with the public as well as managing people so I really love being able to come home and unplug from all of that.  I’m very quiet and introspective so the solitude and calmness suit me. I’m also very aware of the privilege I have afforded me a lifestyle where I can live by myself. I’m lucky in that regard.  I can live with people happily (sort of, I do need alone time) when I’m in a relationship.  Having roommates or living with family though,  I don’t think I could do.

As I get older I’m seeing how age makes that more difficult.  My knees make it hard for me to carry anything heavy upstairs.  I can do it but I’m glad no one is watching as I have to sort of push it up awkwardly.  A large snow storm becomes an event just do dig out. If it’s not too bad I just drive over it (Thanks, Subaru!) and let it melt eventually. It takes much longer to shovel and there are more rest breaks involved.  This is when having another person would be nice.  Just having help is something I miss sometimes.

That was really something I struggled with when I had my heart attack.  I had multiple clots in my lungs and just walking to the bathroom left me out of breath.  I couldn’t do much of anything.  Anything I did had to be done slooooowwwwwlllyyy.  It was a hard lesson in patience.  It was also one of the few times where I was helpless.  I could do the basics to keep myself alive but that was about it.  I just sat in my recliner for almost a month until I got strong enough to sort of function.  That was a hard time to be alone. I had a lot of time to look at why I was alone and the choices I’ve made that led me there.  It was a horrible time and it was a blessing too.  It forced me to take a really deep look at myself.  I started to work with the darker aspects of my past and personality that I’d been hiding for so long.  It’s work I’m still doing.

I’m healthy for the most part now and can function quite well alone.  I’m still working on things I’ve long hidden.  A dear friend calls it “shadow work” and that is an apt description.  The things we deny and don’t want to see.  The unspeakable. The purposely forgotten.  I read a quote that said “Who would you be without trauma? How much of you was created out of survival?” My time alone had given me the emotional space to grapple with these questions and how they relate to who I am.   I could not do this without this time. I have so much left still to do.  I’m blessed and lucky to be alone and be able to do this.

You’re not going to have a Happy New Year. I’ll wish you one, but that’s not how life works.   Our year will be a mix of happy and sad, as it always is.  Most of us will have a mixed bag kind of year, hell most of us have a mixed bag kind of life.  We expect to be happy.   We yearn to be happy.  We act like sorrowful times are an aberration. Bad times are an exception to what should be our easy blissful existence.  We impatiently suffer through rough patches and try to move back to happiness as quickly as possible.  We need to rid ourselves of whatever has happened to make our lives less than perfect.  We want no shade with our sunshine. I”m sorry it’s not going to happen. It’s never going to happen.

We’re human.  Our emotions and situations are always changing.  Your life is as variable and unpredictable as the weather.  It’s human nature to want stability and comfort.  I understand that.  I’ve also learned that the ground under our feet is not solid.  It can shift under us at any time.  Our perceptions and hopes can be shaken.  Sometimes it’s a minor quake easy to withstand.  Sometimes it shakes us down to our very foundations.  Every once in a while our foundation crumbles.  Everything in your life can change in an instant.  Everything you’ve built can be gone.  This what we fear.

So I wish you abhaya for the New Year.  Abhaya means fearlessness in Sanskrit.   Does this mean that no matter what happens to you you’ll be unafraid?  Will you laugh at adversity?  No.  Being fearless won’t stop anything awful from happening to you.  Be fearless in facing life, because whatever it is it’s not permanent.   The most horrible things may seem like they last forever but they don’t.  Good and bad, joy and sorrow can swap places at anytime.  Years that have the most misery can hold the most beauty. Everything that’s destroyed can be built again. Sometimes your new foundations are far stronger than the previous ones. Be open to both.  Have no expectations for your experiences.  Be fearless in your acceptance of your life.

Wow, ain’t I cheerful?  This all sounds very gloomy and pessimistic at first blush, doesn’t it?  I’ve had some pretty awful and scary things happen to me.  I get up every morning delighted to be alive.  Whatever happens in my day I’m going to feel it.  The highs and lows it’s all my life.  I know I am loved and there is nothing I can’t handle.  I do my best to breathe through any pain or anger I may feel.  I savor and acknowledge the beauty and joy.  I try my very best to be completely present. I am so not perfect though.  I get triggered and reactive. Sometimes I get so cranky I could punch a nun.  I take some deep breaths and remember I’m human.  It’s ok.  Good and bad…it’s all good. Every day is a gift.  There’s nothing to fear.

I believe in love. All kinds, every kind. Romantic love, brotherly love.  The love a mother has for her children. Self-love. Unrequited love.  Big, expansive make your head explode love.  The quiet hidden love no one will ever know about. Secret love. The kind of love that can make your heart swell and then shatter like glass in an instant. Lost love. Lasting love. Enveloping love. Emanating love. Penetrating love.  Love is an ocean. Love is a teardrop.

Love is what keeps me going.  I am indelibly and permanently marked both by its presence and absence.  I can feel the love within and without.  The universe is a constantly flowing stream of love.  I used to think love was an essential human trait.  It was a commodity we alone possessed to dole out or hoard at our whim.  I know know that there is a bigger love.  Much bigger…it’s everywhere. Everywhere.

You can connect to it. Tune into it.  But like a distant faint radio station, you have to listen carefully to be able to lock into the frequency.  Once you do though, it’s quite literally life-changing.  What if I told you-you are loved? You are loved right now for simply being who you are.  The person you are right now, with all your foibles and darkness is loved.  That you are perfect exactly as you are.  All the things that you regret, the constant black itch that keeps you awake at night does nothing to change the love that’s yours.  It’s immutable.

We all feel, at times, disconnected from love.  Many of us carry the scars of past traumas.  Too many of us wrestle with the shadowy shame of our histories. Our past whispers how undeserving we are of love.  It tells us love’s abandoned us, and no matter how we search for it it will always be out of our grasp.  That it will always be just out of our reach…visible but impossible to have.  It says to give up, stop looking to have what is unattainable for someone as broken as you.  It turns love into the light of a sun seen from a distant planet…diminished and never warming.  The past is a liar.  Your wounds do not determine whether you are worthy of love.  You are loved not in spite of your hurt but because of it.  All of you. Every experience, beautiful and tragic created you.  There is nothing wrong with you.  You are not broken. You are loved. It’s always with you, you’re never alone.  I believe in love, and I believe in you. Happy New Year.