Loss

I often wonder why we view loss as something negative. Something that once brought us comfort, familiarity, and happiness is gone and we feel that there is an eternal void inside of us that can never be filled.

We lose family, friends, jobs, belongings, and intangible things such as sense of self, sanity, security. Recently I've been experiencing a loss of employment (over and over and over again!), and it's caused a bit of a domino effect. You lose your job, you lose your sense of security, and then you may even start to lose your sense of self-worth. Amazing how the casdade effect works, huh?

Oftentimes when we lose something it's best to focus on why we lost it in the first place and why that loss was/is so hard to bear. And then we must figure out how to replace that lost the best we can, reconstructing our house as it were.

It's not easy, of course, but what in life is?

And I think that's exactly what it boils down to: life. So many ups and down in such a seemingly short amount of time. But it really is the experiences that make us who we are. We can either take the situation as it is, or we can transmute it, rise to the occasion.

Sappy, I know, but a little sappiness is necessary every now and then.

I've lost three jobs since I've moved here to Denver. Embarassing, yes, but it is what it is. All three jobs were "pay the bills and keep a roof over your head and food in your belly" type deals, so the blow wasn't that low. If I had been fired from a job that I was actually passionate about, then I would have taken it much harder. Not that I'm not scratching at my head wondering what the hell I'm going to do, but I've found a measure of comfort that they weren't jobs that I was fond of in the first place.

Loss forces us to realize just how strong we really are, loss forces us to find out who we are and who we aren't. I'm trying to apply the same aspect in my book series (a little self-publicity there). What happens when you find out you can't be who you wanted to be, you aren't the person you thought you were? What next?

So...

What next?