Awareness

I had trouble falling asleep last night. Now that rarely happens, and as I tossed and turned, wondering why my eyes would not stay closed, it came to me. I was sad. Deeply sad.

It's been a fantastic year in so many ways, and as an absolute optimist, it's the good that I've carried with me. I love and am loved, I love my job, I'm learning so much everyday - a whole new world has opened up for me through the kind of facilitation work I'm doing and hope to do more of.

But when one thing gets you down, suddenly you start counting all the others that are niggling at your sub-conscious, and that's what had happened to me. I've been hearing bits and pieces of bad news through the year. The year began with my best friend coping with loss, far from home. Soon after, another very dear friend moving far far away from India and while we are in touch, I miss having her around. Then I lost someone just as I was starting to get to know them - a relationship I'd had great hopes for. And several people I am very close to, or fond of, or both, are battling change, loss, sadness and despair right now. A city I love is spiralling further into darkness, as are the people there (and elsewhere). I think it's the cumulative weight of all that which was pinning me down last night, refusing to let me escape into deep sleep. I've been pushing it aside in all my self-important busy-ness, but it's stayed with me, sinking deeper and digging its anchor hooks into my being. And somehow it revealed itself to me last night.

Do I have a point? I guess this post is to record that I told myself last night that it's okay and human to be sad and to just feel. But it's human and essential to also move on. There's just no forcing it. Which is why as soon as this heaviness passes I'm going to post something light. Because there is so much to lighten our hearts, and thank goodness for that.