Today would have been my dad’s 86th birthday. It’s his first birthday with him absent from this worldly realm and my feelings are peculiar. Like a kaleidoscope of sadness, a paradoxically aching emptiness filled with memories, colours, and mind photographs of things we did together.
I’m ok with this sadness, in the approach to the festive period, to Christmas, jul, the holiday season – I’m still able to be excited and happy. I can hold these two contrasting emotional experiences in separate palms, slightly apart from one another, and thereby switch between the two, and – mostly – choose which one I want to focus on.
But. I’m also very aware that this isn’t so for everyone – for many, the experiences sit together in a single palm, seemingly inextricably wound together, the pain intertwined with the happiness, so neither may be experienced purely, in their own right. For many of you reading this, the weight you carry may feel overwhelmingly heavy, and the aloneness refuses to dissipate in the face of beauty or bright lights.
My heart is with all of you who are struggling during this period. I want you to know that I understand, that your reality is seen, and that you are not alone.
Wishing you all the best, or at least better, for 2023. Love and light. ❤️✨
