Have you ever looked at your life through the eyes of a camera? What would play out on screen? How would the script read? What characters would be involved? What would bring emotion? A dramatic pause?
What would be the crux? The climactic moment? The tragedy? The triumph? The fight? The joy? The crucial moment? The redemptive moment? The moment where nothing would actually change?
Do other people think this way? Do other people play a soundtrack to each moment in their lives? Do other people see their lives in a series of moments?
A defining moment - defined as [see what I did there]:
a point at which the essential nature or character of a person, group, etc., is revealed or identified. - Dictionary.com
a point in your life when you're urged to make a pivotal decision, or when you experience something that fundamentally changes you. - Forbes
What would be the defining moment of your life? And would you recognize it? Do we know we are in a defining moment while it's happening? Or is it only after we reach the other side? After time has passed? After the journey? After we have had time to reflect? Do we know the moment is ahead of us and our decision will have lasting impact?
Is there one single defining moment or is life full of defining moments? Should we have more than one moment?
I knew the moment it happened, I was caught up in a whirlwind of a defining moment - a moment that would fundamentally change me. Everything was in motion.
I don't know when the thought hit me - "a defining moment" - MY defining moment. I am quite sure I was probably driving down the road or falling asleep [when all well formed ideas seem to hit]. I have felt like I am in a fish bowl since my dad died - people watching me, analyzing me, judging me. People seeing how I rise and fall. People telling me what I should and shouldn't be doing -
OH the "shoulds!" Me judging me...and finding ways to give myself a little grace...and to get in touch with who I am and what all this means.
I am young. It is possible I live more years without my dad than I lived with him. That thought rattles in my brain and stops me. It makes it hard to breathe. I cannot fathom.
But I know I don't want to find myself in inescapable darkness - a prison of my heart and mind - sinking in the quicksand of what was - every moment of longing grabbing me and pulling me deeper. I could find myself here. And, strangely, I think would find a comfort.
Will I let this moment, my dad's death, define me? Do I even have a choice? Maybe it's not about the defining moment, but how we define the moment.
I don't think I'll ever quit saying just how awful my dad's death was on me. It really was the loneliest, most isolating feeling. There was a weight that felt like it would never let up. There are days it is still this way.
I don't think I'll ever quit saying how deeply it affected me - wounded me - overwhelmed me - overtook me. Parts of me may never fully recover. I will never be the same.
Now what - the crux of my story - a moment staring - all alone.
I chose to go to therapy early on after my dad's death...a week after. There was never a question of "if" - just "where and when". Therapy has been very beneficial for me. I am learning about myself. I am challenging myself. I am growing.
There is a guilt felt as I grow. I told you it feels like being in a fish bowl - my every moment on display. People watching and waiting. If I laugh too soon, will someone think I didn't grieve long enough? Will someone think I didn't love him? Fortunately, these kinds of questions enter my mind and quickly ricochet like a pin ball right out. I am fortunate that I know the strength and love we had.
There are other questions that don't leave quite as quickly. Will someone think I am a fraud? That I didn't truly feel pain? That my writing holds no value? That my story just...? It was just my dad...
Then there is a question "did it take my dad's death to get me here?" If everything happens for a reason, am I the reason? Even speaking it out [typing it out] makes me cringe and want to crawl into a hole - the words burn - they cut. I don't want to admit that I've ever thought that.
And, as I grow, there is a guilt of the grief not being so consuming - that somehow I have managed to find some other part of me, unlocked, that is able to experience emotions of happiness and joy. Does something get left behind [does he get left behind?] as I start to experience a broader range of emotions? I was in the depths of grey.
I recently visited a friend out of state. She made a comment,
"you seem happier than the last time I saw you."
The last time she saw me I was visiting with my boyfriend and my dad was still alive. So how, in this insurmountable grief, have I gotten to that place?
I am happier than I've been in the past few years - more confident, more passionate, more driven, more aware. Without my dad's death, I would not be where I am right now. I would not be writing. I would not have my heart ignited like I do. I would not have this brokenness that helps me relate.
And, I still grieve. I still cry. I still weep. I still miss him every day. My heart still aches with a heaviness I’ve never known.
There is no doubt my life on screen would have a dramatic, heart wrenching scene of a daughter watching her dad (her favorite person in the world, the only person who really ever seemed to see her) dying in front of her [a flashback of moments shared].
*pan back to the moment* The daughter [crumbling] - She doesn't rise up triumphantly to conquer the world, but takes a single step with tears streaming- and then another step - a quiet push without fanfare - a girl who does hokey stuff out of her comfort zone and learns the value of words from therapy - written words and words spoken to herself - to her heart and to her mind.
A girl who, somehow, always knew "she'd be ok because that man [her dad] raised her." - the last sentence she spoke at his funeral.
And that defining moment became a moment she defined for herself.
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