Ode to 33

It’s been a weird year... a particularly hard last few months... I’ve experienced things and feelings I had never had to be confronted with before... just when comfort and some semblance of wisdom was settling in, my world got turned upside down and right side left(if that’s even an expression!)

I feel like I’ve been living in a bubble up till the last few months when everything I knew and felt comfortable in got swept off from under my feet! Yet I feel it’s the feeling that most of us have been experiencing in this phase of Covid and semi-normal living we’ve been trying to get used to for almost two years now!

My heart has been heavy and literally aching for some weeks now, I told my husband that I was suffering from a broken heart... my naturally optimistic self had escaped me and gave place to pessimism.

Just at about the same time as the latest Grey’s anatomy season was released on Netflix! Hallelujah! I binged watched the whole season in... a week(let’s say, just so I don’t sound like I’ve spent the last few days in bed watching TV) and it made me realized just how much my feelings were echoed in pretty much everybody! Almost every dialogue and conversations were echoes of my deepest feelings!

It’s been a hard summer here... luckily I have an amazing family, and wonderful friends who have listened to me ramble and helped me through some rough feelings!

I’ve just finished reading “No cure for being human” by Kate Bowler... It wasn’t an “ah ah moment” kind of book, it wasn’t revelational in any way, it wasn’t a guide for better living or self-help kind of book... it was simply a call to surrender everything to the unknown... a realization that we can’t control our future, that as long as we are living, there will be things out of our control, our lives could be shortened by a cancer diagnosis at any moment with no definite cure in sight and there’s nothing we could or can do about it but surrender... what a feeling of helplessness that is... yet it’s the absolute truth for every human being. Some of us have been lucky enough to never have to think about it, but let me tell you, once you’ve have to face those feelings... your entitlement gives place to helplessness quite rapidly!

I’ve had to ask friends what “surrender” meant to them or just in general as I was loosing my footing... a wise friend told me that it wasn’t as much surrendering to Someone or something as it was to accepting the present moment, evaluating what was in my power to change and letting go of what was out of my control. Choosing to live each moment with the knowledge I have in the moment, without dragging past memories or looking too far ahead.

As I was saying, this last season of Grey’s Anatomy really hit home with me, so much so that I had to watch some episodes twice and stop at many intervals just so I could write down some of the conversations in order to process them better... here is a snippet that got me thinking:

“Richard- I’ve built my life, my sanity around the surrender to a higher power. It’s the belief that there’s some purpose. That’s there’s a bigger plan, something that if I got all the way above it and could look down on it, that somehow it would make sense. My faith is rooted in the trust that there’s a meaning and a wisdom that I’m just not elevated enough to see or understand. A faith that whoever made this puzzle, it makes sense to Him and it’s beautiful... Today I’m struggling to trust anything and I just cannot see any wisdom in this.

Catherine- It makes no sense... “puzzle” is the word. You can look for the pain, the lost, the unbearable. Or you can look for the beauty, the grace, the miracle.”

It all comes down to us choosing either to see everything that is not as “it should be” or choosing to see the BEAUTY, the GRACE, the MIRACLE!

So I chose the latter... I choose to rejoice in the many texts we’ve received as Finn’s parents from his hockey coaches telling us how teachable and respectful our son is!

I choose to rejoice with Zoey-Leigh as she shares her joy and pride with her accomplishment of having walked almost 20 km in one day with her beloved cousin and grandma!

I choose to share Keilan’s enthusiasm as he comes back from his guitar lessons and shares with me what his “master” (as he calls him) taught him during his last session.

I choose to rejoice in the many moods of our “baby Norah” or Peach as we call her, knowing that all the phases we are going through with her are our last ones... last diapers, last sippy cups, last “terrible twos” or is there something as the terrible fours????

I choose to rejoice in the fact that after 13 years of marriage, Jeremie and I can take a day away from the kids and still have things to talk about and enjoy each other’s company! He is still my best friend(no offence to my wonderful girlfriends, but he has a beard so, I mean...) as corny as this may sound... I am truly blessed!

Life has been good to us, as I’m nearing 33 next week, my heart cries out for many many more years earth side with my beloved ones, but I’m learning that at any moment, the assurance of those many years might be stripped away from me... and all I can do in the mean time is live each day, and each moment as the precious gift that it is!

“Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be.” -Sonia Ricotti

“The more you try to control something, the more it controls you. Free yourself and let things take their own natural course.”

“Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles, it takes away today’s peace.”

I’m sorry for the depth of emotions and vulnerability brought in this piece of writing... I find that this is where true and meaningful connections are created! And I’ve also learned that vulnerability almost always brings equality... we are all in this together, we are all humans!

Thanks for reading!