Shapes

The shapes our lives take are as different and unexpected as the ones our bodies do.  It's not just the cuts and scrapes and unexpected injuries along the way- though we seem to love to tell those stories the most.  It's the way the breathe moves you, the way time moves you.

I'm supposed to be grieving, that's the instruction right now.  Society calls for quiet consideration of the ending that has brought me here.  It is meant to be a time filled with memories, emotions, pain.  And yes, it should be spent alone.

But that's not what I've been finding.  In the space that life creates for me everyday I find myself opening instead of closing.  I find that the memories aren't nearly as bright and vibrant as the laughter or the movement or the sun.  I find myself feeling more alive than I ever have before.

I am changing shape.  Life has held the space for me to fill out and I am fleshing out the parts of myself that were undernourished and atrophied from lack of use in order to fill that space.  Who I am, how I think, what I feel- all of these are growing, expanding, becoming.  And while that may involve pain it isn't the pain I expected.  It's not the sharp sting of the memory or the emotional flood of tears.  It's the jolts and starts and aches of change.  It's the best kind of pain- pain from growth, pain from new life, pain from becoming.

And I am so, so grateful for that.