Re-Entry (2 of 4)

An Evolutionary Life-Quartet: Death, Re-Entry, Work, Space

Life had fallen by the wayside while I grappled with 8 transatlantic years of my mother’s cancer journey. Life fell apart the day she died, and my brother followed 30 suns later. We can go anywhere but we can’t go back. So, in moments of grief and lucidity, I know that healing from not just grief but four decades of caustic breath, blood, and bile is my way forward. Only then may I re-enter my own forgotten life.

Reimagining my own life is a privilege. Because it has emerged from a strength of will to thrive, a willingness to look inward, accept imperfection, and take responsibility for my own joy. It embodies the discomfort of knowing that for many years I’ve been at the edge of the cliff but witnessing death has forced me to reckon with falling. It emanates from the stillness of breathing while living.

Even before my spiritual healer told me about ‘pain bodies,’ I knew my being was holding on to archived trauma. Now, I just had a name for the grain of anxiety that had grown into a fireball. But when she told me that my creative energy, which was my core and my joy, was entirely blocked, I knew I owed myself more in this life.

‘Old dreams never die, they just get filed away,’ says an exceptionally wise fortune cookie that I realize I’ve held on to for years. How better could I honor the deaths of my beloveds than by dusting off my creativity, breathing life into my dreams, living fulfilled in ways they didn’t? What could I take from their absence that could make me more present?

The simplest yet most difficult part of healing has been to accept the hurt that was, without looking back. To stop pretending and minimizing. To stop glorifying being strong and take respite in being vulnerable. As I have started to forgive what was never spoken of and apologized for, the fireball is losing its ferocity. And it’s making space for newfound energy to walk through a doorway to a little garden with a fig tree and hibiscus flowers. A safe place where I can photograph, write, sing, sit in silence, live my dreams, and create my own joy.

The sun is shining and I am re-entering without looking back.

This article is created as a 4-part series for the Medium Writers Challenge. Here are the other 3 articles: Death, Work, and Space

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