LOSSES AND MISSES

My sleep was disturbed yesterday morning when my brother called me to ask me to speak with my mom. My mom's dog, Roxie, died this morning. My mom was crying...hearing or seeing or knowing that my mom cries for anything is almost intolerable to me. I never feel so helpless. I tried my best to comfort her, but I know what she was feeling. About 3 years ago or so, I lost my two cats, Floofie & Mooshka...they blessed me with their presence for 18 great years. I was hoping for 20 but it didn't work that way. So I go to thinking about losses and misses.

LOSSES:
There are different types of losses. There is material loss. This is loss of home,job, investment, etc. Material losses can literally cause you to STOP in your tracks. It brings about fear, real and concrete anxiety, and tend to make you question your worth, e.g. how successful you are in life. I have found so far in my own life experience, that as devastating as these losses are, they really are all replaceable. And I have noticed that these type of losses usually indicate that something better is coming, and open your life to second chances. You may not feel very positive about it when you're in the eye of the storm. However, in about a year or two when you look back, you will find an an odd way that you are grateful for all that happened.

EMOTIONAL LOSS:

Then there is emotional and abstract loss. You can't quite hold onto it, and the loss tends to never ever be replaceable. Emotional loss brings about the most INTENSE and OVERWHELMING feelings you will ever experience in your lifetime. It is the Emotional Loss that can literally bring you to your knees, knock you out, take the world out from under you, make you cry out in a way you never thought you could, and put a whole in your heart that most likely can never be filled (or at least sometimes, that's just how it feels). This type of loss is usually due to loss of a relationship, a lover, a friendship, parents, children...basically it's a personal loss...a loss of a person. And I have experienced these type of losses in my own lifetime as utterly agonizing. These type of losses truly put a huge mirror in your face, forcing you to find out more about who you are, how you felt about a person, where you can improve on yourself or others. It also makes you question if you are/were good enough? But these losses are IRREPLACEABLE because each person on this earth is so divinely unique. How can anyone really be replaced at all? Your experiences with these people are unique as well.

Some of these losses are necessary. Sometimes the cliche is true: "Sometimes people are in your life for just a season, or for a reason, or a lifetim." There are times when some relationships outgrow each other, and the relationship no longer serves either party. There are times when the relationship you have with the person has simply become toxic...it just took you a LONG time to wake up and see it. These "losses" are needed for your emotional and spiritual (and in desperate situations - physical) well-being. So the loss is hard, you feel it, but one day you look back and you don't feel regret. You are affirmed through your own life's improvements that you made the right decisions.

And there are romantic losses. For me, personally always a real rough one. For men (and I could be wrong), I think they don't truly feel the loss until, oh, I don't know, six months to a year later. They suddenly "wake up" and say, I let that good one get away. Women, on the other hand, go into sheer panic and anxiety and before you know it, they are behaving in ways they would never IMAGINE; making fools of themselves and ultimately without intention, making him run further away. These losses have GREAT lessons in them...I believe that the loss of a relationship is only a real "loss" or failure if you didn't learn anything from it. No one should walk away blaming the other person for 100% of the blame. Sometimes you have to ask yourself if you did anything directly or indirectly that contributed to the break. Either way, the longer you were together, the longer it takes to get over it. There's a belief that it takes 1/2 the total time the relationship lasted to get over it. For me, absolutely NOT true!!

But then, the loss of someone through death...Hmph! You just don't get over that, do you? And then of course, you are forced to question if you treated that person with kindness...you are forced to ask yourself if you could have done more, given more, loved more. These are the losses that change you forever. These are losses that are the exception to "time heals all wounds." Not true. Then there are what I call "misses."

MISSES:

When you lose, you miss. If you lose something, you tend to miss it, or you miss the security you thought it gave you. When you lose someone,you WILL miss them...you may miss the good times you had together; the way that person looked at you; the intense pleasure they gave you (you know what I mean); and the comfort of knowing that this person was not just a partner but a really good friend. You miss the special places you went to together, or the little rituals that you uniquely shared and you KNOW you most likely won't experience with another human being. But it leads me to wonder: does that person experience as much of a loss as you did? Does the other person think of you, or do they truly miss you...and lastly, what keeps both parties from DOING something about it instead of just missing...

I was just thinking about it. I've had lots of losses and many misses but all in all, a GREAT and fulfilling life!! I'm just saying...lol.