Relearning to love an old joy

My friend went skiing. Of all the attention-grabbing, impressive first lines I’ve written, this would hardly seem to be the best.

And yet,

And yet.

You don’t know this friend. This is a really big deal. Friend is the one devastated by her divorce.

Who can account how these things go for anyone?

I know one person who is so happy post-split, she can barely keep her feet on the ground.

Grief is like that? Is it not, Dear Reader?

Whether losing a marriage, a child, a beloved pet, there’s no telling how it will show up, how many crevices of your life and loves it will creep.

For this friend, the grief of the divorce stole her joy.

She and her former husband had lived quite a grand life of travel and activities. The unintended consequence of her divorce had her thinking of her pain and his infidelity every which way she turned.

She never again wanted to visit any country they had been to together. Activities were the same. Had she loved doing a midnight run on New Year’s Eve because she really did or because he did?

It didn’t really matter, both things, all things were stained with him and her pain.

And yes, this went long beyond many, most of her friends felt it was time for her to be over it.

But pain, grief, has its own clock.

Friend owned this.

“I shut down so many things that I might have loved because in my mind they were associated with my former toxic life,” she said.

But Friend has been doing her work. Slowly, surely, gaining back her sense of self.

As last year started to wind down, she could hear the calendar talking to her.

The new year was time to try again.

To find out what she really thought, what she really loved.

She rang in the new year with a five-mile run.

A week later she clicked her ski boots into the bindings and pushed herself downhill, a fine analogy if there ever was one. How did it go?

She loved it!

Loved every single second of both.

Do you understand, Dear Reader?

Is there something you used to love, but allowed grief to push away?

Maybe it’s time to try, to let yourself feel the pure feeling of loving something for the simple fact it is lovable.

It might just be time to run under the stars at midnight, to strap on the skis and head downhill.

It might be time to write the line.

To rewrite it.

To write about something you used to love and are finding you love all over again.

It might be the best line you’ve written in a very long time.