I have three hours on my
hands.
Who am I?
Trudy
Rushin
Where am I?
Sitting
in my car, in Granger Bay, watching the sea.
How am I?
Filled
with excitement about the year ahead, with its new energies. I love the feeling
of starting a year feeling a little wiser and clearer, based on the previous
year’s experiences and lessons. I feel ready for the twists and turns that will
inevitably arise. More than that, I feel readier than ever to step out of my
comfort zone and push my boundaries.
Why am I?
I
must admit, this answer comes down to two things, and I’ve decided they are
enough:
1. I
choose to stay alive, for my children. I gave birth to them, I love them and I
live my life with as much peace, gratitude and - most importantly –
authenticity as I can, to give them a glimpse of what’s possible.
2. My
other reason for living is that I made this choice long ago: “I’m alive, so I might as well be very alive.”’
I have an insatiable curiosity about what lies ahead, and that’s why I refuse
to give up, even when faced with circumstances that feel hopeless. If I do
decide to give up on something, it’s always to move on to something else. I
will never ever give up on life.
Granger Bay, Sat 19/01/19
If
the past two weeks are anything to go by, 2019 is going to be a year of intense
and surprising experiences. Last week alone, I had three experiences which were
really, really intense, and I thought
to myself, “Fuuuuuuuck! We’re not even halfway through the first month, and this is what's already come my way!!’’
I’m
teaching myself to reflect on life regularly – daily, ideally – so that I don’t
have a backlog of issues to deal with. I want to deal with things and dispel any
uncomfortable energy as soon as possible, because the next episode could easily
take place the next day, and you’ve not dealt with the previous day’s crap yet.
What
I have also decided – and I love the clarity I feel on this – is that I will
learn the lessons, no matter what. Two of my encounters last week were
difficult conversations with people I’d known for a long time, which revealed
aspects of them that took me by surprise. The issues were so fundamental to my
value system, that those encounters may actually have caused permanent damage
to those relationships.
Something
I first read about in “Women Who Run With The Wolves”, by Clarissa Pinkola
Estes, is what she calls the ''Life-Death-Life cycle''. Coming to terms with this
concept has equipped me with the emotional tools to handle the many forms of
death we encounter, including the death of relationships. The truth is that
there’s always life afterwards, no matter how hard the loss is and how
profoundly debilitating the grief may be – there’s always life afterwards. When
precious relationships come to an end, for one reason or another, I allow
myself to go through all the stages of grief necessary, and I look forward to
the tranquility that eventually comes. Because it always does. Eventually.
One
of the things I will no longer do is make excuses for people who don’t deserve my support; I’d rather remain silent than speak in
favour of someone undeserving.
So
in one week, two people who’d been in my heart for many years, let me down very badly. I spoke my truth, I
invited further engagement and all I encountered was an inflexible, brick-wall
response. I then processed the feelings in my thoughts and in my writing, and I
reached a point of clarity and peace. It’s
not my job to change people who refuse to acknowledge that they’re being closed-minded. They can continue being closed-minded, but without me in their lives.
And life goes on. I have a lot to look forward to, and looking back is not on
my agenda.
The
third experience was being part of a group of women who got together to have a baby shower
for the wife of a man who’d been the trusted handyman of a friend, Patrick
Johannes, who’d recently died. What made the gathering so intense (read, profound
and moving) was that Patrick had been savagely murdered by intruders, in the
very room in which we gathered. For most of us, it was the first time we’d
entered the house since his death, and being there was strange, to say the
least. Most of us had never met the mother-to-be before, but the impact of our
gesture, on her and her husband, warmed our hearts. At least this experience,
while qualifying as intense, was a positive one. I met a few women of substance
I’d never met before, and it was Patrick who had brought us together, even
after his death. Thanks to Michele for initiating the whole thing.
Naturally,
the conversation drifted from one thing to another, including Patrick’s
colourful and compassionate life, and his brutal, tragic and untimely death. I
found myself being supported emotionally by people I’d never met before. How
weird and wonderful. I was struck by the power in that space, that feeling of
‘’this is so right’’, but also by the irony of meeting to celebrate a
person yet to be born, in the home of a beloved friend who was now dead.
It’s
the 19th of January. There are 345 more days in this year! Wow! What
can I say about the rest of 2019? Bring it on!
Another pic of Granger Bay, 19/01/19
