I dedicate this post to my late Grandmother who passed about a year ago. I write this while I am still somewhat in shock that she is really gone. You would think after one year, the shock factor would not exist anymore. Perhaps I am not using the right words to describe how I feel. Maybe it is disbelief and somewhat of denial with a little bit of anger and whole lot of pain. Let’s not forget to mention some guilt while we are at it.

It’s normal to have all these mixed emotions. Maybe it will change with time. Maybe it won’t. I can’t tell you. I will have to go through it first. Just as I had to go through that first year – so I can sit and describe how it felt.

This year was full of pain for me. It was probably one of the toughest years I experienced since – I don’t know a little over twenty years ago. I was reminded of having my whole life stripped down to nothing and having to start all over. I am all about new beginnings and I don’t shy away from challenges. Life does not scare me. I believe that whatever comes my way, I will be able to face it head on and come out stronger on the other side. I know this to be true because it is my track record. My life today is a living proof of what I am saying.

Having to accept that my Grandma is now in the spirit world where I can no longer touch her, talk to her, hear her voice, hear her call my name in the special way she said it. Telling her “I love you” just as I walk out of her place and close the door. Hearing her say: “I love you too” I can’t tell you how much this breaks my heart in pieces. I am sobbing right at this moment as I am typing this. I hear her voice in my head. It comforts me and it kills me at the same time.

There is something healing about opening up and writing down how we feel. It doesn’t change what is. Yet, it helps in releasing whatever is cooped up inside. Not that I have been suppressing my emotions or denying myself the grief. On the contrary, I have allowed it to flow through as it showed up for me. Perhaps in writing this post, it is also a part of my grieving and in some weird way, my healing.

In one year, I had lost two family members to the spirit world. I ended and walked away from a toxic relationship that was slowly destroying me and I moved countries and started from nothing. This is what this past year represents. A year of endings, yet new beginnings. If I were to sit here and focus on all that has caused me pain, I wouldn’t be able to stand again.

But I choose to not give up. I choose to keep moving forward. I choose to rise. I choose to go through whatever struggle I have to. I choose to learn the lessons I needed to – in order to heal past traumas that have followed me for decades. I choose to let go of the past. I choose to start over.

Indeed, it is a choice. However, I didn’t choose to lose the people I love to death. But damned will I be if I stay in a situation where I die a million times each moment if I stayed in it.

Leaving was not the hardest part. Accepting it – is. Being confronted with the fact that for the past few years, I lived a lie. I got caught in a web and it took a while until I freed myself from it. The point here, I am free from it.

So I can look at everything I lost this past year and be miserable, truly miserable. I am not. Far from it. I can proudly say that I am at peace with everything. With the passing of my two family members, my grandmother being one that hit me the hardest. And the ending of my relationship, along with it, all the dreams and plans I have built around it. They were dreams indeed. But who is to say, I cannot dream a new dream. Who is to say that my chances at finding real Love is gone. It is not over until it is over. It is over with my last breath. And until then, anything is possible.

Here I am writing about the memory of my Grandmother, but as I write, and it is all unedited and raw – I am sharing with you my readers, that just like you, I hurt, I grieve, I cry, and I also, smile, find comfort, and start over. This is life. And I am choosing to live it. I hope you are too.