It’s hard to deal with loss: the end of a relationship, the end of a life. As we enter further into adulthood we’re faced with more and more experiences of loss. I suppose it’s simply a matter of time, right? The more time we spend living, the more moments we’ll spend dealing with loss and all its accompanying emotions {pain, heartbreak, and regret, to name a few}.
I recently lost a loved one who was very dear to me. My aunt passed away at the end of the same week in which I had just ended my nearly 6 year relationship with my {now ex} fiancé. I learned of her death with my mind heavy with the logistics of wedding canceling and my heart broken by the weight of having had to cancel it. It was a devastating time.
My closeness to loss, as of late, is what led me to write this article. I started thinking about how people handle loss—how I was handling loss.
It is inevitable. It is going to happen to us. No matter how much we insulate ourselves and take preventative measures, we will have to deal with these unpleasant moments in life. And, the longer we live, the more unpleasant times we will have to endure.
People will tell us “everything happens for a reason” and “it was meant to be”, but those are clichéd phrases, their value worn thin by overuse. They don’t really help and they certainly don’t offer a solution.
I decided that the best way to deal with loss is to examine and dissect it. I also realized that this is something we quarter-lifers should do more often in respect to all the big {and even not so big} moments in our lives.
What are the first steps to dealing with loss? Understand what you’ve been through with this person and how the loss of their life {or the loss of having them in your life} affects you. What did you learn from them both directly and indirectly? How can you apply what you’ve learned, and all the ways you’ve grown, to your everyday?
For me, upon dissection of my losses, I came to realize the true value of my time. When I looked back at time spent with my aunt, I was not regretful. I had made many efforts {and had gladly over-paid on airfare many times} to get up to Oregon to visit her and her family. In thinking about my time with her I realized that I had truly made a strong effort to be a part of her life and to have her in mine. This brought me some solace. But along with the solace, came questioning: How did I use the rest of my time? Was I smart about partitioning out the hours in my day? Did I give those hours to people who truly deserved them?
The answer? No.
What I realized, with all of this loss, is that every day is a blank slate. Every day is a choice. We wake up in the morning and we decide.
Yes, of course we all have to go to work and keep our doctors’ appointments and try to get to the gym, but interwoven within the regular obligations of the day-to-day, there are moments of free time. No matter how busy we are.
We can choose to return our old college friend’s phone call while driving to the bank on our lunch break, or we can choose not to. Every choice, even in the inaction of NOT answering the phone, actively shapes our relationships and human interactions. We choose who to spend our free time with and how to spend it.
And what had I realized about myself? I have been sloppy about allocating my time. I have given a lot of it to those who are undeserving; those who want to be in my life only for their own benefit, for what they themselves gain. I found that I had gotten to a point where my priorities were so out of line that I felt more guilty about missing out on an after-work drink with coworkers than I had about putting off {yet another} phone call to my grandmother.
So what’s the lesson to be learned?
Take a deep breath.
Take an honest look at your life.
Take the time to analyze what you give and take in this world.
And most importantly? Make sure you’re sharing the best of you {and the most of you} with the people who truly deserve it.
~Ashley Taylor
