The Letdown

“Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart…far better things will take their place.”
~ Rumi

There came a point in my life, not all that recently, where the pain of simply being was so profound, it became physical. A daily throb of awareness throughout my entire body that told me in no uncertain terms that something was very wrong with the existence I had chosen for myself. Everything hurt, and no matter what I tried, the hurt was inescapable, omnipresent. I was at a loss as to what it was or what had caused it, but it lived with me daily, like a splinter under the skin. I’ve heard that unacknowledged grief manifests in a physical way, and this was, I would eventually conclude, grief, naked and in the raw. It was not, however, until today, that I was able to see it in that way.

The reality is, everything dies. And the death of most things necessitates a period of mourning, one in which you shut out the world and right yourself again.