145: because you and I will (still) lose it all

It’s been a hell of a year. Pardon me while I lay it all out to dry.

A month after I sign my first lease, my boss dies.

You read that, and you don’t get it. She isn’t just my boss; she’s my professional mentor and the company is my family. It feels more appropriate to say The family patriarch dies. As a result, the empire shuts down.

A month after that, Pop dies.

He, too, is the family patriarch. I say that and you get it now. Unemployment ensues, and I encounter expensive car repairs (thanks, Mom and Dad*) and disintegrated friendship.

It has been a year of loss. 

And still, here I am—new job, running car, less crying, same amount of sadness—and Jeff Foster’s words meet me. They always fucking meet me:

“You will lose everything. Everything that seems permanent is impermanent and will be smashed. But right now, we stand on sacred and holy ground, for that which will be lost has not yet been lost, and realising this is the key to unspeakable joy. Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heartbreaking gratitude. Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar.” **

It has been a year of loss. I’ve lost precious people, but they come back to me now and again. They come back while I’m playing cards on the kitchen floor or walking through dandelions in the baseball field.

And when they come back, they return with gratitude and joy and significance. They return with life, because they return to life. To my life, completely fragile and utterly holy with the overwhelming assurance that I will lose that, too.

And when I meet them, I have no choice but to dance with joy because of all that is still here.

* For the sake of my pride, let the record show that I paid them back in full. 
** Full quote is here.