“Finishing a book is bittersweet. You spend days getting to know the characters. Learning their nuances, their faults, their loves, their lives. They become your friends, acquaintances, enemies. And after the story ends, you miss them. You look for them in your own life, wonder where they’ve gone, you forget that they aren’t real. You fall in love with the hero and dream of him at night. The strange girl becomes your best friend. Their heartaches become your heartaches. You laugh when they laugh. And cry when they die. Eventually you realise they aren’t a part of your world, you were just briefly visiting theirs.”
Love, life, time, all have a way of taking you unawares at times. People too have a remarkable knack for tripping you up, but the best of all is memory. We have a wonderful capacity to remember the wonderful moments and, if not forgetting, then at least “greying out” the not so wonderful times. It’s a safety mechanism – I’m absolutely convinced of that.
Being in a situation where you have a lot of time on your hands, after all the minutiae of each day has been finished, can allow you to review, not only your day, but your life, or at least the larger events in your life. This isn’t a bad thing, in fact it can be an invaluable tool of transformation. If there is one thing I have learned it’s that you can never stop learning. There is always something, some way in which I can be better, do something better, help someone more….. I’m sure you get the idea.
Being static is a form of ‘death’. If we are unable to continually, even in small increments, move along and be all we can be, then we are wasting our lives and our opportunities to grow. It may sound ridiculous to say that, as an adult I wasn’t to continue to grow, but what is the other option available? Stagnation – I really don’t think so. It makes me think of mould and mildew and fungus and spores, and whilst I love certain types of fungus, I’m not overly enamoured of becoming one. So the idea is to continue to grow and evolve.
Evolve, what a wonderful word that is and how much it can conjure up. When I take a look at life, from the very beginning, we can see how much life has evolved, changed and the miraculous things which have eventuated as a result of the evolution. Granted, there have been some best forgotten ways in which things have changed, but like all children, we have to make mistakes in order to learn.
This, is ultimately what I believe we are here for. We are here, on this beautiful planet, our home, to learn. We are here to grow and become all that we can be, so that as evolved beings we can go onward and create better things, better places, be better beings than we have been thus far. Once again, it may sound far-fetched, but it is the only sound, dare I say it, even logical reason for some of the horrendous and the magical things we see happening around us.
We see people broken by events who take their own lives and sometimes those of others. We see people spending days trying to coax stranded whales and dolphins back into the ocean. We can see people who carelessly speed and cripple or maim themselves and others and we also see those angels who walk the earth. The people who rush in where “mere mortals fear to tread” and help care for the hurt and injured, the trapped and fearful in their hour of need, without thought for their own safety. When you pause to consider the depth and breadth of possibilities, you have to acknowledge that it truly is inexplicable.
Earth Angels. Image courtesy of Josephine wall art.com
“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”
― Joanne Harris, Chocolat
I recently returned to my doctor who I have known for several decades. In fact, I think of him more like a friend than just my doctor. He knows me, my family and he has cared for me through some of the worst times in my life. I knew he had been involved in an accident, but was totally unprepared for the sight that met my eyes when I saw him. A dog had tripped him whilst running and as he fell, awkwardly, as he put it, his thigh “exploded”. The x-ray on show bore testament to the agony he must have suffered.
His hip had to be replaced and his thigh is wired and bolted and screwed together. His shoulder is also bolted and screwed into place. Yet he was there, in his surgery, tending to his patients. A true earth angel. My heart clenched in sympathy to see him struggling around. My stomach knotted up with anguish as I instinctively moved to help him to get up from his chair. The irony, if I helped him we would both need help, to get back off the floor! Yet there I was with a person I care for and could not help. I sent him Reiki, and am continuing to do so. It’s a small offering for someone who cares so much for others.
Dying Zoo Worker Gets Goodbye Kiss From Giraffe – Image courtesy of ABC News abcnews.go.com
What has this to do with “Bittersweet Moments”? Nothing and yet everything. It was a moment in time which was bitter in the knowledge that I was unable to really help another human being. It was, also a sweet moment as I realised that I cared for someone, enough to feel their pain and send them healing, as much as I could. It gave me the hope that, if we two could feel and support each other in this small way, then there is much greater hope for the larger scope of humanity. There is the belief that, rather than annihilating ourselves and the world we live in, we may evolve and share the beauty of this world with future generations to come.
So, despite the doom sayers, I will continue to do what I can, where I can, and say a prayer of thanks for all those who do the same, in the knowledge that we are all working towards evolving into more evolved spirits, who will shine with a light and purity that will make a difference to all. This, to me, is at the core of “Bittersweet Moments”.
Blessings, Susan ♥
© Susan Jamieson July 2014
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