Acceptance

It’s taken me 5 years to learn the concept of acceptance. After hundreds of books, blogs, and online discussion boards, the answers I found were all within. I laugh at this with contentment, gratitude, and pride. I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, and for so long, I have been chasing an invisible ghost that had been floating in and out of my life. My old life is gone. It serves no purpose here today other than being a part of the season that I am living in right now. Who should care but my own self? The answers, even if they were where I had suspected them to be all along, had taken me on countless adventures, physical journeys across a wide scale map that covers the entire world. There’s that story about putting the man together, the whole world falls into place. Today, I see what that means. I accept that for what it is.

In short, acceptance is knowing that one day my mother and father will no longer be here. It’s knowing that my sister and brother will be the only ones to keep their stories alive. Acceptance is knowing my wife and I will one day get old too. It’s knowing too that on the inside, whatever age that will be in the near future, I will still see her the way that I look across from her at the dinner table when we were 21. When we were 31. When we were young. It’s knowing that my pet rabbit from childhood had gone way too early, and it’s accepting my fear that one day my cat too will have her day. Acceptance is being able to laugh at how painful this can all be. It’s being able stay still and listen to the challenging call that tells us to move forward and leave behind all that you’ve known. It’s writing this and knowing it’s the best I can give it today.