embracing what is and choosing hope

These days I am learning to look at what is and embrace it rather than pining for what I would want it to be.

It doesn't seem to come easy, though. There have been days (and many of them) when I have just been looking backwards, and instead of counting my blessings, I have been counting my losses, as if remembering them all somehow was vital. As if by remembering I was slowly building an identity that says, "I am the woman to whom all that happened, and here she is, defined by her losses". 

I would read all the stories about refugees and people who have been maimed or disfigured and feel I was connected somehow, thinking, "yep, that's me too, but with the difference that my scars are on the inside, and nobody else can see that actually half of me is missing, and even though I still have my passport, I have no sense of home anymore". My identity was slowly turning into that of a perpetual victim, and I was becoming a memorial to past pain.

And then one day not so long ago I caught myself saying to a friend, "My next 20 years will be the most productive of my life". I was startled, because as I said it, I actually realized that is what I really "know" to be true. And then in another occasion I heard myself telling my life story and describe these past five years as a dark dip in an otherwise great adventure with lots of turns and twists of the plot, making it all the more interesting.

The change happened, I think, when slowly but surely, I chose hope. And chose to embrace what is. Not making it my identity, but rather making it a part of the unique story that is mine. I still wish for many things to be different, but hope is more solid than a wish. With hope comes the realization that there are indeed things that I am in charge of, one of which definitely is to be more clear about who I think I am.

I embrace a rock solid hope of a bright future, but whether it turns out to be like I envision it now or not, I am still me. My bruises or the flowers in my hair are not me, not even a part of me. But they most definitely are what has happened to me. Especially the flowers.