! ! ! SERIOUSLY ! ! !

I'm realizing that I am in a whole different place with grief than I thought. I am not quite sure how I got to this point that I started to open my heart up and begin to connect with people, but this started long before I even went to therapy (how this started to happen I'm still very interested in finding out!) Yet, as I've learned to connect with people, I've also realized the risk that comes in letting people into our lives and especially into our hearts - we may lose, this is the risk. Although I didn't move to Arkansas to make friends, something amazing happened - not only did I make new friends, but I also learned what it is like to really connect with them in ways beyond anything I had ever experienced! I learned to open up with them in new ways for me - ways for me that are very risky (grief for me means that I am learning to take risks...this side of grief is very uncomfortable, and horrible). It's a risk to connect with people, to let them in, to truly live life with them - all very very risky things.

Since me and most of my friends moved to this part of the world simply for the program it was inevitable that we would all leave at some point....yet I am always the one who leaves first. Since I have had difficulty with connecting, aka I have chosen in the past not to connect, I was always ready to get out of dodge as fast as I could to start a new chapter of my life with new people, people that I wouldn't have to connect with. Some of my closest and safest people have already left Arkansas, but I wasn't in a place to grieve the loss of them leaving.

So hear I am now, faced with needing to grieve. I never really grieved when my other 2 friends graduated and moved to new places...they (whoever they are) say that grief will eventually catch up with you]. So there is this piece of unresolved grief. Than another safe and close friend leaves on Sunday, that needs to be grieved. They will all be here starting tonight and then come Sunday they will all be gone, but this time when they leave I will be in the middle of this grieving grossness....although grieving is supposedly a good thing, its hard, messy, unpleasant, and painful. In some seemingly twisted way this is all a good thing; the fact that I am here at this new grieving place says that I have allowed God to change some pieces of my heart, and that with God's help I have worked dang hard to get here (where ever here exactly is)...I think my current frustration is that not only have I lost the direct physical contact with my dear friends on a regular basis, I'm losing or have lost some of the safest people for me...and the thought of therapy as being the only physically safe place is currently not acceptable for me. Yet opening up means that (1) there must be safe people around; and (2) I must be willing to "go there," be authentic, and vulnerable with those seemingly safe people - all the while being fully aware of the future loses that can come from connecting and attaching myself to other people!

This is a vicious cycle & process!!!

SO what happened in Arkansas that all of this changed?!?!?!?! This is the very BIG question I would like to know the answer to. As I look back I can see so many pieces of my process that led up to my ability to be here in this process today. I'm fairly certain that the Holy Spirit was a major catalyst behind all of this. And although I am grateful for the process to set me free from the bondage that has been there for so long by my choices to not attach, or stuff emotions, I just wish I got to see, think, feel more of the payoffs of this freedom now. It's hard to be in process; It's hard to wait for the good payoffs for me! I get to see payoffs through being a counselor; I'm learning what it really looks like to be fully present in sessions; and I think and sometimes even feel more empathy towards them....these are all good things, but aren't payoffs for me. That may be selfish, idk?!?! I think I am wanting God to show me more of what He has redeemed already...I want to know that me learning to grieve is really worth it for me, not just my clients or the people around me, but worth it for me....