I have an anniversary, of sorts, coming up. A time, a marker placed on the calendar turning over the leaves of days, moving through the passing of years converging with time now.
It is a significant date for me. A notable occasion and while I tell myself, don’t make a big deal of it, it’s just ‘a date’, I feel the swell of memory, of gratitude, of appreciation welling up, sweeping over the intervening years from what was then to what is now. I feel the lightness of being and I rejoice.
Ten years is a long time. It is a short time. It is no time. It just is. Whatever I make it, it becomes part of the flow of my life moving in and out. It becomes part of the journey from there to here. It becomes and is, all part of the undertow, the ebb and flow, the washing over and the moving into living every day with joy and gratitude.
I have an anniversary edging its way onto the horizon. I want to scour my memory banks, dredge through my veins cleaning out all remnants of ‘those times’ to free my blood to flow clear today.
I feel the presence of those days more at this time of year. This is the time I was ‘disappeared’. These are the months when I was not alive. Not here. Not present. These are the days when I waited, frightened, alone, terrified, yearning for release. Waiting to die. Those were the days. This is now.
I live. Free. I live. Alive. I life in the flow of life all around, gratitude swelling my heart to bursting. Love beating a fierce tattoo within my being all present, all here, all encompassed by life in the rapture of now.
It will be ten years this May since that morning I awoke and was given the gift of my life. Freedom. Release. Ten years since the fear that encased my heart with invisible bonds were broken. Ten years.
A decade.
A time of growing. Of deepening. Of becoming.
A time of celebrating all that is true and beautiful and wondrous. A time of letting go. Of releasing. Of forgiving. Of loving.
A time to reflect upon and see how far I’ve come since that morning in May when I sat in catatonic disbelief that what I feared the most, his disappearing from my life, was the one thing that could set me free.
I am in awe of the power of love and forgiveness. I am in awe the healing that comes when I let go of fear and stand with love in the broken places.
I am in awe.
I have an anniversary coming up. I don’t know how I’ll mark the day, but I know, this time is a time to rejoice, to cherish, to celebrate all that I am when I let go of fearing who I am is not enough.
I am, me. And that’s enough for me.
May your day be filled with the wonder and joy of knowing there is no one else just like you in the world. You are unique. A gift. A wondrous being of light. A magnificent soul of love and beauty. May you radiate love and joy in everything you do, through everything you are and may you know you are loved, just the way you are.
Dare Boldly 
Louise, This is beautiful. I am happy for you taking your flight. Getting to know you. And loving you!
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Ten years that the world has been blessed with your shining light and magnificence of the new and true ‘you’. I give thanks and praise to that day a decade ago. May your light continue to shine for many decades to come.
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Ah yes — enough. and delightful unique — I love that my unique gets to dance with your unique Carolyn. Thank you. 🙂
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I rejoice with you, Louise… May you realise that you are ‘enough’… in fact, more than enough; you are delightfully unique.. 🙂
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10 years is wonderful but each day you live and rejoice in being you is a wonderful day……………you inspire so many of us to live and be happy yes it is just another day but it is also such a bloody fantastic day and should be remembered and embraced
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You are so wise and filled with grace Joanne — thank you! And hyup — it is a bloody fantastic day! 🙂
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Happy Anniversary to you ~ 10 years is such a blessing ~ as is having connected with you! Big hugs! xo
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And big hugs to you Misifusa — I too feel blessed to have connected with you.
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Thanks Louise! Hugs!
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Happy Anniversary Louise! I am so glad that you are alive and I celebrate that!
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Thank you my friend! I do too Diana — now…. to celebrate together 🙂
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LG,
Your milestone, not to be confused with millstone, will soon be come & gone. Then what? Does each year become another ‘anniversary’, or is there a time when it becomes a blushing-brush with a past time you never need to know again?
A new friend recently sent me some words – relating to moving on from a similarly gut-wrenching event, with these words:
[ healing is in process. I am doing “the work” that it takes to nurture myself and allow the grief to flow through. It is evolving and I will probably never understand why … but I am moving on.
and . . . Life goes on. ]
Cheers,
Mark
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Hi Mark. I also think there’s a place where we find ourselves beyond healing and in the flow of living. That’s where I know I am — there is always healing going on — but the living is much, much stronger and vibrant and more joyful and liberating.
I also don’t think there’s just one answer to your question — it is what it is, I am where I am and the gift is in simply being in grace in the flow — no matter what is happening all around me.
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Thanks MAureen — I love how you put that.
BTW — The painting is one that came to me out of a meditation on the past ten years. It speaks to me of the freedom I’ve experienced in growing through those events.
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You know, you mark “it” every day. . . by being here and, most of all, for going on, for living in joy.
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