I think that having found that warm and loving community here has helped me open up about how I truly feel. Most of my friends and family have no idea… I feel safe sharing these thoughts and feelings here with people like you who know exactly what to say or how to just be there because you recognise the thoughts and feelings yourself - all too well. Thank you for that 🩷 I am so grateful to have found this writing sanctuary full of people who feel life. It is such a comforting place and you have no idea how all these kind responses have each found their way into my heart to help heal some of that loneliness. 🙏🩷
Thank you Caroline, I’m going outside for the lungfulls today 🙏 just taking it as it is for now - thanks so much for your kindness, it means more than you might realise. 🩷
Oh I'm really sorry you're going through this. It's such an honest piece. I'm glad you're finding some resonance in Weathering. It sounds to me like several things light be happening at once. Grief for things gone or perhaps not had, loneliness through disconnection and perhaps a bit of depression around that more general sense of what's the point. A crisis of meaning, purpose and/or community is such a hard place to be. I think all that advice sounds good. One step at a time, patience etc. All really sensible. In my own life I have found it so important to stay as an active participant in my loneliness, grief and depressions. To keep making those small in roads towards better things. I hope you can keep walking that path until a sense of emergence arrives. Xx
If you were a piece of land, that has been plowed and planted and harvested for many years, it is not.al that that piece of land is no longer producing. Which is why in farming, fallow years were common: years where the land was left without planting.
It lets the soil recuperate, regenerate and be healthier afterwards.
Consider yourself to be in a fallow year where nothing 'must', nothing 'has to', where you're just allowed to BE. To rest, to cry (adding moisture to your soil and regenerate.
I too am in the gray space, a time of transition, of not knowing and not seeing beyond the gray. I have no answers just the awareness that I must make space and time to grieve what is gone and what will never be before I can turn to welcome whatever new possibilities await.
Deep breath. We will sit with the gray as best we can, hold our grief gently, and at some point turn to face the sun once more.
This is not the end. Simply a transition between chapters. 🤗
I remember sitting on the couch many an evening, wondering in despair if this was what the rest of my life would be. It turned out it wasn’t, fortunately, but it is a hard time to go through. Like Ruth says it so aptly, a crisis of meaning and Deanna also puts it very well. So I offer my presence and compassion dear Mies! Hang in there, your star will shine brightly one day Cx
Awww such a vulnerable and real piece of writing…deep gratitude for sharing ❤️ I am also in this strange midlife space and I feel you! It feels like an overall “in between” time in life and it’s not always easy for real. Instead of advice, I offer my presence and solidarity as you bravely do your best everyday. I see you. You’re not alone. Sending so much love ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Hi Mies. Your poignancy and honesty are so disarming. And your words are beautiful. Thank you for sharing so openly, making a place that allows others to be in and to express our own loneliness, our own confusion or frustration at feeling stuck and being in the gray.
Your sense of wanting to be more in community resonates deeply with me. I have inadvertently isolated myself since a few years ago when my kids became independent teens and needed less of my involvement (no more mommy-and-kids play dates, no more fetching, etc), and especially during the pandemic. My circle of close friends with whom I stayed in touch often became smaller and smaller by choice.
Now, however, that I’m an empty nester, I have started feeling the desire to be with others more often, to have a community with whom I share common interests and values, people with whom I can swap stories and poetry and sentiments.
I hope this isn’t the end of the line for your writing, as I am looking forward to more.
Such beautiful heart-felt writing, Mies, know you're not alone ❤️ Your experiences and your ability to share them in such an open and relatable way help so many others out there stuck in the gray. The mind can play horrible tricks on us, and the un-Spring like weather doesn't help! A long walk in Nature, taking deep lungfuls of air and looking at the leaves unfurling on the trees and the different birds singing helps me quieten my monkey mind. Sending you big virtual hugs xx
I think that having found that warm and loving community here has helped me open up about how I truly feel. Most of my friends and family have no idea… I feel safe sharing these thoughts and feelings here with people like you who know exactly what to say or how to just be there because you recognise the thoughts and feelings yourself - all too well. Thank you for that 🩷 I am so grateful to have found this writing sanctuary full of people who feel life. It is such a comforting place and you have no idea how all these kind responses have each found their way into my heart to help heal some of that loneliness. 🙏🩷
Thank you Caroline, I’m going outside for the lungfulls today 🙏 just taking it as it is for now - thanks so much for your kindness, it means more than you might realise. 🩷
Oh I'm really sorry you're going through this. It's such an honest piece. I'm glad you're finding some resonance in Weathering. It sounds to me like several things light be happening at once. Grief for things gone or perhaps not had, loneliness through disconnection and perhaps a bit of depression around that more general sense of what's the point. A crisis of meaning, purpose and/or community is such a hard place to be. I think all that advice sounds good. One step at a time, patience etc. All really sensible. In my own life I have found it so important to stay as an active participant in my loneliness, grief and depressions. To keep making those small in roads towards better things. I hope you can keep walking that path until a sense of emergence arrives. Xx
If you were a piece of land, that has been plowed and planted and harvested for many years, it is not.al that that piece of land is no longer producing. Which is why in farming, fallow years were common: years where the land was left without planting.
It lets the soil recuperate, regenerate and be healthier afterwards.
Consider yourself to be in a fallow year where nothing 'must', nothing 'has to', where you're just allowed to BE. To rest, to cry (adding moisture to your soil and regenerate.
You need it. Take it 😘😘
I too am in the gray space, a time of transition, of not knowing and not seeing beyond the gray. I have no answers just the awareness that I must make space and time to grieve what is gone and what will never be before I can turn to welcome whatever new possibilities await.
Deep breath. We will sit with the gray as best we can, hold our grief gently, and at some point turn to face the sun once more.
This is not the end. Simply a transition between chapters. 🤗
I remember sitting on the couch many an evening, wondering in despair if this was what the rest of my life would be. It turned out it wasn’t, fortunately, but it is a hard time to go through. Like Ruth says it so aptly, a crisis of meaning and Deanna also puts it very well. So I offer my presence and compassion dear Mies! Hang in there, your star will shine brightly one day Cx
Awww such a vulnerable and real piece of writing…deep gratitude for sharing ❤️ I am also in this strange midlife space and I feel you! It feels like an overall “in between” time in life and it’s not always easy for real. Instead of advice, I offer my presence and solidarity as you bravely do your best everyday. I see you. You’re not alone. Sending so much love ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Weathering is such an amazing book isn’t it?? I found it so insightful the idea of our inner and outer landscapes 🩵
Hi Mies. Your poignancy and honesty are so disarming. And your words are beautiful. Thank you for sharing so openly, making a place that allows others to be in and to express our own loneliness, our own confusion or frustration at feeling stuck and being in the gray.
Your sense of wanting to be more in community resonates deeply with me. I have inadvertently isolated myself since a few years ago when my kids became independent teens and needed less of my involvement (no more mommy-and-kids play dates, no more fetching, etc), and especially during the pandemic. My circle of close friends with whom I stayed in touch often became smaller and smaller by choice.
Now, however, that I’m an empty nester, I have started feeling the desire to be with others more often, to have a community with whom I share common interests and values, people with whom I can swap stories and poetry and sentiments.
I hope this isn’t the end of the line for your writing, as I am looking forward to more.
Such beautiful heart-felt writing, Mies, know you're not alone ❤️ Your experiences and your ability to share them in such an open and relatable way help so many others out there stuck in the gray. The mind can play horrible tricks on us, and the un-Spring like weather doesn't help! A long walk in Nature, taking deep lungfuls of air and looking at the leaves unfurling on the trees and the different birds singing helps me quieten my monkey mind. Sending you big virtual hugs xx