Things in Perspective, Sometimes

We have reached May 2011, and it has been a stressful year. I told my friend V recently that 2011 feels like the year of loss. I lost friendships (plural) through death, and through an inability to control my emotions.

Recently I find myself trying to make amends with some friends. Some of these attempts have been more successful than others. Along the way, I also made a few new friends, and enriched my relationship with others.

So maybe it wasn't a total loss. Maybe it is as they say, one door closes, another door opens.

I have been trying to maintain a daily meditation practice, and while it isn't a perfect record, at least some effort has been made. If you look at the list on the right column of this blog, you will notice I have been reading a bit of Pema Chodron. She has been a tremendous inspiration for me this year.

Maybe the meditation is kicking in. I find myself being able to step back and take things in perspective again. Things move in cycles - sometimes your relationships are wonderful and your life is full of warmth and joy. Sometimes, it's cold and hurtful, and no matter what you try to do, things don't work out. You lose some, you win some.

I lost some friends this year. But I mended some relationships along the way. Maybe the people that left will return one day. Lately I keep coming back to certain passages by Pema Chodron:

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Let there be space in my heart, in my life for things when they fall apart.