And then I blinked...

I remember growing up with my closest friends. I remember us talking about our futures. Our dreams of the perfect lives we would one day have. Our perfect weddings with our perfect husbands and the number of kids that would complete our perfect families. I remember when I got to live out those dreams. The day I had my perfect engagement. The day I got to walk down the perfect aisle on the perfect day to wed my perfect husband. I remember the happiness and disbelief as I got to experience those dreams first hand. From every argument to belly aching joke, each moment was special.


And then I blinked.


And all the perfect moments I had dreamt of gradually reversed back into the dreams they originally were. I could no longer reach them despite how hard I tried. He was gone.


Sometimes it’s difficult to see just how much your life revolves around another until they are no longer with you. Leaving you with just your own life to contend with. So I had to take this life of mine and learn what it meant to live. I began taking steps to move my life forward. Building new dreams. Accomplishing new goals.


And then I blinked again.


Before I knew it I was living. I inherited a sense of independence that I never knew existed. I gained perspective of what brought me happiness and ridded the things that did not. I pushed myself when I could and rested when needed. I embraced positivity, surrounding myself with every ounce of it I could find.


I began to feel invincible. I had a shield of widowhood to protect me. A sort of numbness grew within my depths giving me strength towards life’s most mundane occurrences. I had lived through my worst imaginable tragedy and there was nothing that could hurt me now.


But then, I blinked another time.


Suddenly those small occurrences in life started to hurt again. A roommate leaving me, a friend moving away, a boy rejecting me. Things that are so small on a scale of life or death yet somehow they slowly snuck back in. They had an affect on me deeper than should have been allowed. How is it something so small could hurt so much? Where was my strength? Where was my shield?


The truth is the blindness of loss took over long enough for me to mistake it as invincibility. Life continues. Feelings and emotions prevail. And life occurrences anywhere from small to grand are going to take an affect on both my mind and soul. But I’ve noticed that each hit I take helps to expand my perspective. While it may hurt a little, or sometimes a lot, it makes me more knowledgeable than the time before. It’s life’s way of providing me with the necessary tools to create balance within myself.
I may not always embrace these challenges but I am learning to respect them. For each challenge is only helping to prepare me for the next time I blink.