A room with no windows

Grief feels like this, a room with no windows. You know that there is sunlight and warmth outside, but you cannot see it or feel it, because you are locked inside, for the time being. 

Your grief folds you inward on yourself. 

The world is too big. You must get smaller, so that you can bear your grief, while it stays with you. No one knows how long that will be. It is different for everyone. You wait, you feel. There is nothing else to do. Eventually, you will want windows in your room again.

First, you will want a small window to let in a slit of light, which will gradually work its way into your soul, softly. Then you will want more than one window, to open up and begin to air out your  grief. It will always be with you, of course. But you can live with it more easily, after some time has passed.

There are some people who live in rooms without windows for so long that they forget what it is like to look into the light, and feel the warm rays on their skin. They forget how the air dances on their arm hairs. Life is not meant to be lived like this. We are meant to live our lives out in the open. Outside of the room, outside of the four walls, in the bright light and the cool air. 

But sometimes, we are required to spend some time in a room with no windows.

There, we look inside ourselves. We grow, a little. There we can sort through all the things that have hurt us, all the things that have become too heavy for our heart to bear. There we will take all the time we need, to pay attention. And in paying attention to our hurts, we slowly heal. In acknowledging our grief, as an entity, a being that comes to take up residence in our bodies and our hearts, for a time, we confirm the truth that we can heal. That we will stay open. That life is worth living, no matter what happens. No matter what we feel.

We need the people in our lives to understand. To not try to pull us out of our rooms of grief without windows. We must stay there as long as it takes, and they must understand. There is no shortcut. We must simply wait there for as long as it takes. Hopefully with a soft, warm blanket, and a journal full of memories that are written down in black words by a black pen, that you can read over and over again. 

You must allow yourself to feel the feelings over and over again, until they become softer and gentler. Until they are less of a sharp pain bludgeoning your heart, and more of a soft whisper caressing you. Feel them, over and over again, until it is time to let go and move on. Until it is time to write the poems that will bring comfort to other humans, who experience these same things. We are no different than each other. We feel, we love, we lose, we grieve, and we begin again.

Allow yourself to remember. Whether it was one time, or thousands of times over thousands of days, if it pierced your heart and made you feel more beautiful than you ever felt before, then a soul truth was transmuted to you.

And do not talk of grief too soon, darling. 

Sometimes you jump too quickly into that room, and it is not time. Hold on to yourself. You have grieved and lost much, and you have recovered your brilliance, softly and slowly.

And when you are here, this time, do not grieve over long, in this room without windows. You are only here for a short time. It will do its work of love in you. It will rock you back and forth gently. It will speak to you, so then you can write down the words it speaks to you, and share them with others to comfort their hearts and souls, when they enter their own rooms without windows.

Be brave, be present, be soft, darling. You are here for a reason. Trust, as much as you can. Know that you are held. That life is giving you exactly what is needed in this moment in time. Needed for you, needed for the collective that you came here to love and serve. 

You are required to rise up; there is nothing else to do.

Be brave. It does not matter whether or not you understand. It does not matter whether or not other people understand. You can bear this, you can do this. You are more courageous and strong than you will ever know. Over and over in your life, you have risen up. You have made hard choices. You have followed the voice of spirit, above all the other voices. Even when others willfully misunderstood you. It does not matter. It matters only that you choose to rise. That you stay open. That you surrender, that you choose to make yourself available. Just breath, and be here now, darling. There is nothing else for you to do right now, in this moment.