This won’t be a long blog… I just had a thought – an epiphany if you will, and I wanted to share. At this very moment, I’m sitting in seat 12A on my way to Texas. I wouldn’t have thought a few weeks back when I booked this trip it would be to attend a memorial.

This month has challenged my core immensely. I was forced to take a minute and realize that I had been lying to myself. For the past 9 months I had kept telling myself that I had gotten to a great place with my biological father. We were speaking, things were good between us, no arguing, no bitterness, and for me – no more hurt. Things WERE good – however the place I got with him and our relationship just wasn’t good ENOUGH. I wanted more. I want more. And, now it’s gone.

The last several months of Steve’s life I became SO INVESTED in his medical health. Part of this I know is because I’m a nurse and type A. I was hell-bent on fixing him. I was gonna throw every curve ball at those physicians to pull strings and make them give him a new heart. I got so incredibly absorbed in putting all of my time, energy and attention into his health.

I failed. He died. I’m angry.

Im angry at myself. Part of me unrealistically feels like I killed him. That I didn’t do enough or push enough or get the right people involved at the right times. Then I realize it wasn’t my job, it was the physicians and they screwed him. I’m angry at them. THEN, I realize all that time I spent on trying to fix him could have just been plain ol’ conversations about us – him, his life, me, my life. I missed those opportunities because I was so damn focused on fixing him that I completely avoided what was actually happening. He was dying.

This is a hard lesson for me right now. I sometimes, and by sometimes I mean almost all of the time – get so Focused on “the problem” right in front of me that I forget to take a breath and enjoy life. I focus on the “storm”, the fear and avoidance of that storm and what to do to prepare for that storm that I completely forget to sit back and enjoy the sound of the rain and thunder.

I’m trying. I’m trying right now to take minutes to breath. To take minutes
To realize I have just lost. That I have lost and I’m sad. That I have just lost and I’m allowed to stop fixing someone or something else right now and just allow the rain to come.

Stop. Stop and take a breath. Stop and wake up to what you are using in your life as an excuse to keep you from enjoying your life. Accept it and let the rain come. And when it comes – dance in it. It’s okay.