Life Changes - Nikks

“Love is the one game you lose by refusing to play.”

I heard that quote a very long time ago, I think on Ally McBeal… is my age showing? I think that we can replace the word “love” with the word “life.” I’ve realized that if you don’t live in the dash, you lose.

It’s a simple rule, 19xx — 20xx, the dash between birth and expiration.

That dash is your life.

I never really thought about the dash and what it represented until my aunt lost her best friend about a month ago. The last time I participated in this series, I was afraid of what life would hold for me after watching Benjamin Button. But by the end of my write-up, I decided to live without fear and I have for the most part. Working as a social worker in geriatrics and during a pandemic, fear creeps in once in a while but my clients also have beautiful stories to share about their dash.

I've loved in the dash. I’ve lost in the dash. I’ve experienced moments of pure joy and moments that forever changed and shaped me. I’ve had children and lost children. I’ve cried until I thought I would literally explode from grief and when I did not, I learned to cope and live with the grief. Grief is like a scab you forget you have. It starts to heal and then you feel itchy, so you scratch it and the scab comes off. Bleeding again like a fresh wound, the grief comes back.

When I lost my son, Theodore, five months into my pregnancy I thought I would die from grief, looking back I questioned how I survived it.

Faith.

Prayer.

Friends (on and offline).

Family.

The scab of grief will always be there. It will never disappear and be healed completely. Sometimes I still bleed for Theo. Life isn’t always fair, we all know that by this age. There isn’t always a reason for everything, but there are lessons we can pick out. Losing my son allowed my daughter to gain the best mother for her, a patient and gentle mother because this child—

Wooooooosaaaahhh!

The first time I wrote for this series, I would never in my wildest dream imagine I would have experienced so much! Nothing could have prepared me for the good or the bad. Currently playing a bittersweet part of the game, but that’s a share for the next series.

Paulo Coelho lives rent-free in my head (as the kids say),

“Fear is a bigger obstacle than the obstacle itself.”

So in the dash… see the places, eat the foods, drink the drinks (in moderation), dirty dance, love the person, leave the person, get the puppy, make your house feel like a home, decline the invite, accept the invite, feel the things!

Fill in the dash!

Miss Nikks (if ya' still nasty) 💋