Focus on the positive
My dearest friends,
It’s been a while, again. I haven’t been writing a lot lately. My grief has taken me on an emotional rollercoaster. I am learning so much, about myself and my priorities, my limits and my weaknesses and about how I fit in the environment around me.
I want to focus on the positive here. It’s not an easy task but I’d like to force myself to do this exercise. The last few months have been and still are overwhelming, I’ve awakened from the shock of Mya’s absence and everything around me seems so different.
Over the past year, I tried to keep things going as they were and tried to deal with everything new without realising that you don’t wake up from such an experience the same. Even though I feel that I am starting my journey with grief all over again and it mostly feels as if there can be no end to it, I want to dig for those small rays of light. After all, I promised not to always be negative.
It’s hard to explain how different I feel. You may remember that I was off work during November and December. Some days during these two months are a complete blur, I sometimes could barely move from bed - when Ella was with her dad. But somehow through all that, I found Yoga again. And I can tell you that it damn well saved me. I found this amazing studio in Paris, where I felt at home. With every practice, I felt more alive. On some days, Yoga was the only thing that got me out of bed. I’ve been practicing Yoga for the past seven years. With my pregnancy and the hospital stays, it wasn’t always regular, but I’ve always felt drawn back to my practice. Yoga was part of my training, with 10 other hours of exercising a week. It slowly started to be the main focus and much more than just a training exercise. Yoga has magical healing powers and I plan to take on as much of these healing powers as possible and hopefully share them with people around me.
Beirut is at the heart of another twist of events. Before my trip in September last year, going to Lebanon felt very sad, mainly because I couldn’t help but feel that I was betraying Mya. Lebanon was her happy place but I wasn’t able to take her back. It’s very different now. At some point - not sure how and when - I forgave myself and fell back in love with my country like I never was before. I don’t go just for Ella anymore and I get almost as excited as she does before our trips. I say almost because I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who gets as excited as she does! Beirut is my home…
I wrote in a previous post that with grief, I feel that the only way to go on is to find that one thing that matters, that one thing that we want to hold on to and do everything in our power to keep it.
Now that I woke up to a world I don’t recognise anymore, I feel that I can’t go on as I have so far. I still find my old self through all the pain and anger but parts of me have changed and make it impossible to stay where I am anymore. And I’m not throwing empty words or wishful thinking, but rather the first synopsis of the changes I am planning for. All on a journey Mya and Ella have taken me on… my Rays of Sunshine.
To be continued...