I was plummeted into some delayed grief at the start of 2024. Waking each day with a kind of weighted blanket over my being. Everything simply dampened, on the wrong timezone, sucked dry. My system was depressed.
It was wholly unexpected and unwelcome.
I refused to admit what was happening for a good few months, much to the detriment of any semblance of progress.
Looking back I marvel at how I still accomplished a number of professional milestones. My first 100 hours coaching. An in person retreat. An art show. Numerous fruitful collaborations. Landing my dream role at The Somatic School.
The trusty steed of my being carried me through. My intuition and abilities kept the diary filled and a pay check coming.
Thank you body.
I look around the flat I share with my partner. Which, at the start of the year, was empty; waiting to become lived in; for the sprinkling of evidence in the nooks that this is a home.
It’s now flourishing with photos on the walls and thriving plants too big for the pots we bought.
The knick knacks of our nearly-not-a puppy Hectore littering the space. Her brown bear she uses to play tug of war. Her blanket hand knitted by my mum.
There’s life between these white rental walls that we collected through my grief. More books on the shelves, the candles burned a little lower, the clutter in the cupboards needing a sort.
They say some years ask questions and some give you answers. I can tell you that the answers are never to the questions you thought you were asking.
I told a friend earlier in 2024 that the death I was grieving had left me groping for hope. I’ve stared at the night sky and spoken to it, trying to find adequate responses. I’ve listened to podcasts on grief and read books about death to find solace.
“If they can’t find a way out, if death was the only option, how can I still have any hope?”
My friend simply replied, “You are the hope.”
My breath still catches as I recall this gift she handed to me.
As I thrashed about in the murky waters that the wake of death leaves, life grew around me. I was still able to make choices for a brighter self I might re-find around future’s corner. I kept choosing, which is life-giving in and of itself.
I was the hope.
When you’re so tight up close to the darkness, your face slamming against its bleakness, there’s no way to see what the ‘you’ in it all represents.
The part you are playing in this dance, which can instead feel like a lacklustre boxing match.
There’s a meditation practice which invites you to imagine the back of your head and the space that your whole body is taking up in the position it’s in. Having this perspective on your ‘self’ is the same sort of gift.
You are the hope.
I now understand that death is not a shame. It’s not a waste. It’s not too soon or too late. It’s not an ‘if only’. Death is literally a part of life, it’s a rung on the ladder, a piece of the puzzle, a pebble in the stream.
But it’s not even the last rung, last piece, last stone. Our concept of death just places it at the finish.
Once I let go of this gripping on to ‘if only’, (if only they had… if only I…) I could hold the fact of death as lightly as it deserved. It simply is. And it was easier to put the pebble back into the river this way.
It’s not mine to grip.
Let go of the shimmering gold string, taught to its red helium balloon pulling to be freed. Let it float up into the atmosphere. Watch it as it disappears from vision on the whim of the wind.
Hope played its part in me recognising and accepting the rich variety of flavours of love I have received in my life this year.
I wrote on my white board “let the love in” and when a new friend visited my flat she read it, paused, turned to catch my eyes and held my gaze when she said, “we can help you with that.”
That love, that hope, squeezed my hand through some of the lowest moments, and took the blows as a battering ram through the rowdy parts.
That love sat with me as my tears fell into our guac & chips. That love flew over to eat pastéis de nata on my balcony. That love simply said “it sucks” and allowed me to take the mask off. That love dropped what they were doing and walked with me for a snatched 20 mins whilst I said things that made no sense.
That love kept turning towards me.
It handed me books, songs and words as bread crumbs through the woods.
It still saw things in me and granted my parts opportunities.
It walked me through the tunnel of trees to continue with me more joyfully in the sunshine.
This year I toast to love.
And to hope.
And to you.
I’m a somatic coach and write about the human experience, finding ways to articulate this messy thing we call life.
If something I wrote touched you I’d love to hear about it.
Sending you all some love across the ether as we close one year and welcome a new.
Please don’t reply to this email if you received this in your inbox, I unfortunately don’t get those replies! I would LOVE to hear from you though so feel free to message me on Substack, use the comments or email me at merylrowlands@outlook.com.
Love this piece, Meryl <3
Here's to you and another year full of life, Meryl!