“It’s weird being here. It feels like I’m standing next to my real life.” (Henry Rollins)
Occasionally, living the unexpected life that I do, I have that sense.
Despite the fact I’m living a completely new and different life, and I am very happy in it, every once in awhile I experience a “moment” like that. I’m just living my life, doing my thing, feeling normal and everything else that goes with choosing to embrace and live a new existence with which I’ve been blessed, and then…I have the sensation that it isn’t real, and for an instant, prepare myself to return “home” to Colorado and envision myself driving down my driveway and walking in the door only to realize, “Oh, wait. That isn’t my life anymore. I’m not visiting Utah, I work here, I live here now.” How can I have even one moment where I forget that? But every once in awhile, for just an instant, my subconscious apparently does.
Have you ever had one of those moments? When you look at your life, and it is SO DIFFERENT from the life you expected to live, that it’s sort of…weird? You almost wonder if it’s really yours, yet it is, and aspects of it feel more real than maybe anything you have ever previously lived. (Anyone? Anyone? Or is it just me? Or is it post traumatic something-or-other reserved for innocent people whose former spouses committed crimes and perpetuated fraud behind their backs, who go through a lot of life changes in a brief period of time and come out the other side of it with a terrific, but very different, existence?)
The good news is that instead of being filled with relief at being able to “wake up” (like you do in dreams, especially bad ones) and go back to the old life and its plans and hopes and dreams, I find that I’m actually relieved to be living this one, despite its challenges.
So while I don’t know what psychologists or therapists would say about this, I’ve decided not to sweat it. I consider it part of the fallout of unexpectedly losing one life and inheriting another, and choose, instead, to count my blessings; the blessings of my real life. I believe every single life is FILLED with good things (some lives just require a harder look to see the good sometimes, depending on what phase of the unexpected life you’re living.)
And if you’re having a hard time recognizing all of the good in your life today, in my opinion, that’s ok. I think I remember living a day or two, or several, where the only good thing I saw as I tried to count my blessings was that I was still breathing!
Yet here I am, just two years later, finding so much to cherish and be grateful for. Life happens like that, if you just hang on long enough.
After all, “If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance.” (Andrea Boydston)
What are YOU grateful for today?
