sunday snapshot # 23
In life we are all handed good and bad. And a lot of times we are just waiting out the storm.... waiting for it to pass and to get back to normal. But what if there is no getting back to normal? What if you have to embrace a new way of being and you are just not ready?
This has been me for a while now. I'm usually really good at waiting out the storm and usually really good at being grateful and seeing the bigger picture of life, but 3 years ago today I had a major hip surgery that has changed everything. I know how to wait out a storm with a hopeful outlook. And I know how to get back up when I fall down. But embracing a new normal has been a challenge. I didn't know how different life would be after this surgery. I didn't know that my sense of balance and sense of movement and sense of self would be so different. I didn't know that I would barely recognize myself -- and that I would feel so lost.
I have wanted to give up many times. I have even wished more than once that I died on the operating table because what good is life if you are in constant pain and can barely move?
But the only way to get through something is to go through it.... you have to walk straight through it to get to the other side. You won't get to the other side unchanged, but there is always more of life to live and even when you feel you have nothing, you really have so much--- it's all in the way you look at it and all in the way you define what is important in life and who you want to be.
I keep waiting for things to get back to normal.... but there is no going back.... there is only moving forward.
Forward in my life philosophy, forward in my art, forward in my sense of self, and forward in what I give to this world. At every moment we have to decide who we are-- are we going to be kind? are we going to be thoughtful? are we going to be generous? are we going to be strong and do the hard things in life? are we going to let go and start again?
We sometimes hold on too tight to things that we need to let go. Life is a continual process of letting go because when you let go, you open up room for something new and there are so many possibilities :)
Here is the first in a series of images I have been working on.
These images speak to my experiences with brokenness, with struggle, with perseverance, with hope, with gratitude.... with taking what is left over and making something new.
from ashes - 2014