Bittersweet Pauses

Someone said something to me recently that I hadn’t thought about, but gave me a different perspective on some feelings I had been having. I’m pretty open about certain struggles and I had been talking about feeling a little emotionally/hormonally disoriented in the midst of my competition prep and this certain friend said something very poignant. She said, “…You are in a different LIFE than you were even a few months ago. You are letting go of a lot of years where you probably felt stuck and like a half version of yourself. Don’t be surprised if you are mourning that…” Wow. I have thought about that a lot, especially recently, as I truly leave a lot of my past and parts of me behind.

I’ve actually been told by a couple of people that I like those deep feelings of melancholy and I don’t think it’s because I’m a sad person, but because I really do get in the face of my feelings and try to deal with them. I’m very sentimental. I don’t really like change. Yet, my whole life has changed. It’s been exhilarating and I have embraced it whole heartedly, but I never stopped to really think about perhaps there was a part of me that was truly mourning who and what I was leaving behind.

Even in those moments when life is staring at you in the face and it’s beautiful and you feel the season has changed and you feel open again to experiences and you really feel free you can still feel mournful. I can’t help but have those moments sometimes as of late. It’s like nodding my head in acceptance of certain decisions, yet also that pang of “…if…” That’s when I find myself pausing. Yet, I don’t stay there. I have before and I know I can’t anymore. Pausing too long leads to stopping progression and stopping progression leads to a road of unhappiness and brokenness.

So… you pause for a second, you remember, you look into the face of your future… and just breathe. You can’t pause for your past, your can’t pause for the “ifs”, you can’t pause for the “coulda, woulda, shoulda”… you pause long enough to catch your breath and remember that the only salvation is in moving forward.