When people we love leave our lives, either voluntary or involuntary, it leaves us with empty spaces, both emotionally and physically. Friends, family, spouses, whomever, these people both enrich and color our day to day lives. So when my wife left, she left me with a lot of empty spaces. The spare room she slept in the last few months is now a deserted and cold box, the closets filled with different clothes and colorful shoes, now empty and plain looking. Those are just the empty spaces you can see, there's a whole separate world of empty spaces you cannot. For every empty space now punched into my life, I choose to look past the pain, and into the potential. A show once said space was the final frontier, and that's so true because with some empty space and a bit of creativity, you can turn it into anything you want. Take the spare room, now I can finally build that home gym I always wanted, or make one hell of an amazing home office. Take that empty closet, I can, well I don't know what I can do with that right now, but luckily enough, I can close the closet doors! Though in time, I will find a way to consume that space or turn that space into something that isn't a painful reminder of what was, but a window into what will be.
So what about those empty spaces you cannot just cram materialistic things into? That's even easier to fill, but you have to want to. You have to be emotionally ready to move forward and engage your present situation with open arms. Those spaces will fill themselves before you even know it. For me, my son will be fitting into some of those spaces. However, that's a catch-22. My son cannot be the only thing to fill those holes. Those holes where left by a partner in a marriage, a 19 month old little boy cannot be expected to fill the emotional spaces left from that. This is a time when it's good to be selfish! This is when I am going to fire up friendships that I have let sit idle, this is when I am going to push myself to start running. The fact that I will no longer be with my son 24/7, though painful and sad for both of us, has the potential for me to "do me". For me to just be relatively care free and pursue the things that I want to pursue. Now I would never turn down time with my son, or minimize the time we have together to pursue those things. I need to find the balance.
A few days ago his mother and I were discussing this very same topic. How do you fill the emptiness? She said that she was going to consume herself with our son. While that made me very happy to hear, I also expressed to her what I mentioned earlier. He cannot be the only thing you rely on to fill that space. You need to concentrate on the things that make you happy, and if you don't know what they are, get out there and find them. I expressed to her that I am going to find things that I can do with him, and also things that I can do on my own. Again finding that balance is the magically key in all of this. I then mentioned that any plans I make where I couldn't involve my son where plans that I did not want to be involved in either. That's true to an extent. If I made plans to go to a bar, I don't expect to bring my son along, but the life I live when he is not around will be quite similar to the life I live when he is, and that's key. I am not going to be some insane party animal or womanizer on the weekends when my son is with him mother. I will be me regardless of my situation.
You have to want it though. You cannot sit there on the couch moping and living in your own personal pitty party. Doing so will actually cause just the oposite to occur. Those emotional spaces will grow. They will continue to grow so large they begin to consume unrelated parts of you. It will literally drain your body of energy and spirit. This is the tough part. The courage to say screw it, I'm not going to rollover and die, I'm going to go out there, kick some ass and take names, so to speak. Empower yourself, and you are powerful beyond limit. It reminds me of an amazingly inspirational quote by Marianne Williamson:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
I love that quote, you, me, and each and every one of us has the potential to be extraordinary, if we only allow ourselves to be.
My spaces won't be empty for long, and I hope that your's won't be either.
-Rich
No comments:
Post a Comment