I think it is important to continue to evaluate your emotions as you travel further forward into the future leaving behind that milestone marked as your new start – AL (After Loss). We categorize our lives on timelines and anniversaries of all types. My cathartic calendar holds holidays, birthdays, reunions, and all kinds of anniversaries. However my dates now hold reminders of deaths. Some expected, some not but all peppered across the paper of my future time.

I also want to speak the words into existence and state that your grief evolves you. Grief is like a virus that enters you through your emotions and affects your DNA permanently. The adversity alters you and you become a different species of yourself. New knowledge infused in your being that brings strengths and weaknesses. As I continue my growth through my grief I have noticed subtle differences that have a larger effect on me than I realize sometime. I can’t dive into all of them today but a recent event had pointed out that I carry around a strand of Grief DNA that needs slow extraction – I’m often afraid I will lose everything.

Yes it is true that nothing lasts forever but many people (and the fairytales we are taught) don’t have the loss as early in their calendar as “expected”. The jarring truth when you lose sooner creates deep fears that leak out in various ways. For me, I have a deep fear of losing everything. Will I be alone? Will I be jobless? Will I be homeless? Will it all be gone tomorrow? My self-preservation has been activated in a new way. Normal fears can be pushed back and controlled but the Grief DNA unleashes natural instincts, fight or flight and developmental stages we don’t often think about.

When you are a baby, you lack what is called “object permanence”. Babies don’t know or understand that people and objects continue to exist if they can see them. For some babies, “Peek-A-Boo” can cause positive reactions like smiles and laughter but for others a fear could build at the unexpected. This past week I recovered from a difficult asthma attack. When the air returned and I opened my eyes so did a number of fears. The Grief DNA went into overdrive and sent me into self-preservation. I could lose everything at any moment. It could all go away in split second.

That episode was difficult but I’ve learned to seek the schooling. There’s a lesson buried in those fears that I need to uncover, acknowledge and release. I fear every day that I can lose anything and everything. Is it possible? Yes. Is it probable? No. I can’t hold onto the calendar and refuse the page from turning. Time holds more strength in a second than I have in stubbornness. It’s time to acknowledge and begin to grow through my permanence perspective and stop being afraid the Universe will play a frightening game of “Peek-A-Boo”…