It's about acceptance

Losses are meant to teach us lessons in acceptance


Apparently the keyword of the day today is 'acceptance,' and with good reason. Many of us cannot figure out what the hell we did to lose what we have, but the thing is that we are not thinking about what it is that we have lost in terms of it being a lesson for us.

Our human minds cannot comprehend certain things


When we are in the middle of a misunderstanding, or maybe we have suffered losses that we cannot fathom a reason for the losses, that is called a lesson in progress. There is an old saying that "when the student is ready, the teacher appears," yet, no one tells us, too, that when the lesson is over, the teacher goes back to his or her life.

I spoke with more than only one person today, and of the majority of them all, the one thing that stood out the very most to me was that these are people who are hurting, who have no idea what it is that they said or did, and that they know that somewhere along the lines, they lost out on things and on relationships that were more important to them than even they realized they were. The funny thing about relationships, no matter what kind they are, is that relationships all require a lot more than many of us are willing to put into it, and when we want to put more into it than is needed, that is when we need to question our own selves because it is at that time when we should be able to see and to know what it is that we are all about. And there is even a problem with that line of thinking, and it is because we may think we know what we are all about, but in truth we do not.

In fact, we know so little about a lot of things that when it comes time for us to realize what has happened, we are perplexed at the truth that has become our own.

It's all about the acceptance


I bitch a lot, pretend not to be afraid of the inevitable nature of the things that are contained within my near future, but I am afraid.

I am afraid that one day I am going wake up and realize that there are a whole lot of things that I have purposely left unsaid to my husband that needed to be said that I was too scared to say so as to save him from having to deal with something that I have said. I am afraid that one day, after I have opened my eyes to see that daylight is upon me and that once again it is time to take the kids to school, I am going to look over at him and find him not breathing and cold. I am afraid that after all these years, and even after all the shit the man has put me through, my life will, in that one moment, change irreversibly. I say a lot about his impending passing, and though in a collective and round about way, I am not afraid of the things that most women faced with such an immediate future, are.

I am not afraid to be alone, and I am not afraid to raise my kids by myself. I am not afraid to be misunderstood, or anything else that wives in my position should be or are, but I am scared of so many other things, things that make no sense, not even to me.

Yet, the one thing that I know that makes this fear more prominent for me is that no matter how I perceive this to be, the one thing that makes the very least sense to me is that for the first time in my life I am not able to fully understand, and more, fully accept that these are my circumstances, and truly, to a certain extent, there is nothing that I can do about it. I must accept that this is what has become of my life to this point. I must accept that I have talked myself into the idea that one day soon, I am going to be (gulp) widowed, and I must accept that though I, for a little while, lived the "American Dream," with the house, the cars, the fancy neighbors who actually loved me and still do. I lived the life that most wives only dream about, are wistful about, pine for and talk mad shit about women who are fortunate to at least one time in their lives be able to look out a window that she calls 'hers'.

I should have known better to get attached to that life, because we all know that the life of those who live in Spirit is never easy, even though it is also never boring. I should have known that like all else, that situation was going to be temporary, and I look back at it now and see that it was never the building, the vehicles, the unity I felt with those people and that neighborhood, but that I got there but did so not alone.

For better, for worse, we - he and I- got there together, and again, this is yet one more road that we will travel together, even though when it is time to again walk the Path again, after all is said and done with, alone again I will travel. And yes, that scares the hell out of me. For twenty years I have had the mixed blessing of having someone - even as unenlightened as he has  been, can be, is - no matter what, I have had that benefit of knowing that he was there, even if only physically.

And this is where the acceptance comes into play, at that point where, once again, he is right. There really is nothing that I can do to remedy what others have said, done, will do, and that the only person whose ideals and inspirations matter at this point are mine. This is not a selfish statement, and neither is it meant to illicit any sort of emotional response out of anyone that mirrors anger or rage. This is simply the truth that belongs to me at this present moment. The only time that I venture into that area where rage rules is when I am accused of being somehow heartless because I refuse to show emotion regarding my circumstances. I cannot be made to feel like I should not about it all, because when it comes right down to it, it all depends on  me, the idea that I have to accept this as my own truth, my own fate, my own, period.

And yes, the sooner that I can go within my own self and begin the healing process - make  no mistake...this shit hurts - I can begin to take the time to accept what it is that apparently I was cut out to deal with.

"No matter what, you are going to be just fine, I promise..."


Ahhhh...spoken like someone who really does not understand what it is like to be the one walking in this particular pair of Steve Madden's.

This is the part of acceptance that no one really understands, the part which tells someone like me that no matter how I feel about a certain situation, this is all mine, and the more people tell me - one person in particular- that I am going to be 'just fine,' the more I begin to understand that even though I might not like it, they are right - I am going to be just fine. The world is going to continue to turn on its axis, people are still going to be here on the planet, and I am going to be just fine. In large part I know that this is the truth, but there is that little tiny piece of me that is freaking out, that is not happy with what she knows will be the outcome of this all, and most of all, is not buying into the idea that people have about me that says that I am the strongest woman alive. I may very well be, but that remains to be seen.

No one can predict how anything will turn out, and at the same time and in the same light, no one can also put their own selves into another's shoes enough to be completely empathic about anything. I can tell my friend who recently moved into her parents' house that I get how she feels, but only part of me does. How she accepts her circumstances will be and likely is different than how I have done with mine. We can never put ourselves into the shoes of another person. That is asking way too much from them, from ourselves, and we torture ourselves all the time trying hard to understand completely, and it is for nothing more than the sake of the ego trying hard to be the savior. I know better than this, to try to save everyone, but I do it anyway. I lend myself to them because like they are only starting this part of their lives, I am in the home stretch. To that end I have accepted everything happening to me and in my life right now, and I can whine and pine all I care to, but that won't change anything.

The only thing that changes my circumstances is my acceptance of them, period.

We know who we are not by what we have done, but how we feel about what we have done


Acceptance is like integrity - you are not born with the ability to accept - we are here to learn to do that through the things that break our hearts the most. In my case there is a lot more to this all than only the 'happily every after' that is going egregiously wrong. It is also that throughout my life, your life, our lives, we have been told that 'this is the way that it happens,' and then it doesn't happen the way that we are told, and we end up feeling like we'd been lied to. I know that this is the way that it happened for me. My whole childhood is ripe with memories that tell me childhood is wonderful, marriage is meant to be until one of you dies, and you are not supposed to die until well after at least one person is calling you "grandma." No matter how I think of it, though, this view of it is not a lie, at least not for someone else, but for me, it does not even come close to the truth.

My marriage has been rife with pain and loss and heartache, even as my memories of the last twenty years are also pregnant with joy and happiness and quiet revelation. We all accept the happy part, but there are those among us who still cannot accept the parts where feelings were hurt because someone said something hurtful, where lives have been changed because someone made a decision that was not intended to benefit anyone but their own selves. This is not only true in marriage, but in life itself. Marriage is just the best example of being able to learn and to deal with and accept the circumstances we share with another person, for better or worse.

Unless and until we can accept that we are who we are, can accept that there are things within the confines of each of our lives that we alone are to learn from and to accept, things do not change. When it is that we can accept the truths that have become our own, whether it is through decisions made by us or not, that is when we will see the tide of emotion no longer as the tsunami that it never was.

It's all about accepting what it is that has become ours, no matter what. Right now, the only thing that I can accept is that I hurt, badly, and that I did not realize just how much strength it will take to say goodbye when the time comes. I will rise from this particular pile of ashes fine save for the memories which precede the hurt which I have not yet been able to grasp, even as it is my very own. I spin my wheels everyday, trying hard to make some sense of all this loss, and the only thing that comes to mind is that this is all a big lesson that apparently God knew and knows I am capable of learning from and accepting.

I just wish I knew when I will be done with this particular lesson...

I LOVE YOU ALL
...Roxanne...