Solitude - When the Truth Hurts Like Hell

I have to admit that I have no idea how to start this post.  It won't be something clever.  It won't be something witty.  I don't even care if it's something wise.  All I ask is that I can stay honest with myself and write something true.  All I can say is that my truth is telling me to just STOP IT.  Stop waiting.  Stop spending precious energy hoping.  LIVE... with what I am fortunate to have.  Do what I need to do, but let go of the fairy tales.  Allow my ego to admit I was wrong and settle nicely for what I have, what surrounds me, what is willing to receive my love and to offer love back in return.

Dreams have just been shattered.  Hearts have just been broken.  Life that was taken for granted is gone.  It's not coming back.  It's death.

My son and I were having an enjoyable day of hiking yesterday after an enjoyable evening of campfire cooking, meaningful conversation and relaxing, soundly sleeping to the sounds of the natural beauty and serenity of Pere' Marquette State Park the night before.

Early that morning, probably around 4 am, I had heard the haunting cry of a screech owl, followed by some conversational hooting across the sky outside my cozy tent.  Hmm.  Interesting.  I love hearing the sounds of nature.  I was feeling grateful for it and their early alarm set me up nicely for watching the sun rise with a cup of coffee, gratefully made with hot water brought to a boil on my ex-husband's (our) old Coleman camping stove.  So nice!

We cooked a hearty breakfast, bacon and eggs, you know, and fueled ourselves before a highly anticipated day of hiking all the trails across the park.  We started with Goat Cliff Trail and were happy that we did, enjoyed the climbing and considered ourselves wise for choosing the right path.

We hiked and climbed for an hour and a half or so, maybe two, and reached the top of the bluff, enjoying several scenic overlooks as we climbed.  But this overlook was the highest, the best that we had climbed across so far.  This overlook area had a bench and a picture postcard view of the river valley below, and after a mile and a half trek up that bluff, we were open to sitting on the bench for at least a little while to enjoy the view.  

So my son sat down, I walked over to the edge, and that's when the call came.  One of those calls that you never want to get.  One of those kinds of calls that some families just seem to get far too often.

Broken hearts

Shattered dreams 

Innocence and the dove

Life gone 

Too young 

Too soon

The End

I turned around from filming and snapping a few pictures of the view to find my son talking on the phone.  I had overheard him say "Oh no."  I thought I heard him say, "Do they know what happened?"

I stopped filming and chatting away and went to sit by him on the bench.  He told me that was his wife.  Her brothers baby had died.  The baby was just 3 months old.  

Shock.  Disbelief.  Nausea.  Wondering.  Processing all began to settle in and take their turns running the show.  We cut our trip together at Pere' Marquette short, as my son decided he should go be with his wife to support her such an emotionally difficult time...

I took my son home (absolutely where he needed to be) and I headed back to the campground by myself.  I hiked some more of the trails we had intended to hike together that day.  I watched the sunset over the river...alone.

In the light of a softly blazing campfire, started with my own hands, I reflected upon the joy I'd felt the night before with my own son who started a fire, cooked our campfire casserole and roasted some homegrown sweet corn in the campfire coals.  It was a happy memory but so bittersweet in the shadow of a child's light, a child's life that was gone so unexpectedly.  That was gone so soon.  I could never know how terrible that would feel.

A solitude set upon my heart that night.  I felt more alone than I have my entire time that I have been traveling by myself on this solo August Adventure trip.  It all felt so shallow, and pointless, this whole trip, the whole idea that I have some sort of mission to accomplish, that I have some huge soulful revelation to discover.  Everything that is important, everyone that loves me, every important reason for my being on this planet in the first place is in my life, loving me, needing me, wanting me and I am running so good damned hard in some direction of some ghostly idealistic fantasy of some kind of crazy quest that would n't make any sense to any of these loved ones around me if they had any kind of clue as to what I was really out here trying to do and trying to be.

Driving back to my home base away from home base, I was hit with an epiphany.  It happens to me from time to time.  This one came with tears, convulsive sobs and a realization that I am just WRONG.  Time is telling and proof is proving that.  My heart is confused and although I had never believed it before, at this late stage, after so many more years have passed me by, it must simply be my EGO wanting to prove I was right.  But I never was.  I was always wrong.  And oh my God...

What am I doing here.  I'm waiting. For what? An imaginary something.  Something that's wasting my time.  Life is too short to waste precious time.  I woke up and realized, I am just wasting my time.  Waiting.  Hoping.  I can't.  I can't do it anymore.  Period.  I'm setting myself free, something I probably should have done three years ago, but I didn't.  But finally, I am now.  I am letting it go.  I feel tears.  I feel stupid.  I feel wrong.  But that's ok.  Admitting the Truth is better than wasting my time lying to myself. 

Life is too short to spend it waiting for a ghost to arrive.  Death helps one to remember the incomprehensible value of life, it reminds you of time you can never get back.  Life is precious.  Time is precious.  I choose to live.  I choose to love.  I choose those who love me.