Taking a bite of a stale piece of bread is so disappointing. Going stale easily sneaks up on you, or actually, it snuck on me, without my noticing. Since my husband Jacques died 20 years ago and my husband Ron died 9 years ago, I’ve lost other relatives and friends too and became immersed in helping others deal with grief and find happiness at the same time. While I am thrilled to find my purpose in doing all that entailed, I realize I’ve become a bit of a bore.
In the last year I have started broadening my horizons. I love to write and continue to write my blog every week and write our Grief and Happiness Newsletter. I also facilitate our weekly writing group with help from my friends Judy and Phil. Yet I found myself yearning for freshness, and I am so glad I did. I attended a women’s retreat with Karen Drucker on Kaua’i. I spent a week with my dear friends Fontaine and Michael.
And my dear friend Charmin came to visit me on Maui. I attended to business at my Ambulance company in California. I went on a cruise to Alaska with old and new friends. I started attending a gathering of friends who paint watercolors together, and another group of friends who go to theatre and concerts together.
This year I am planning a fabulous concert with my great friend Rickie Byars in Maui and am planning a beautiful retreat with my good friend Michael Sudman on the Big Island of Hawaii. And Sadie Beil and I are ramping up for our next From Mouring to Light international summit on Zoom with great new guests and topics.
As I write this blog, I am flying back from Pacentro and Rome in Italy where I went to celebrate a big birthday with Sadie and meet some new, great friends: Greg, Mel, Pietro, Karen, and Will. Besides a delightful birthday party, we went on spontaneous adventures like visiting the snow, cooking great food together, discovering new coffee drinks, and best of all having deep, meaningful talks as we got to know each other while we lived together in a Medieval village on the side of a mountain! Pieotro, Sadie’s husband, introduced us to so much to see and we discovered Rome from an Italian’s perspective instead of like tourists.
I am sharing all this to encourage you to think about what you are doing. What have you always wanted to do? Who do you want to do something with? Where do you want to go? I encourage you to write in your journal exploring these questions. I’ve got a concert, a retreat, and a summit I would like to see you come to. And the Grief and Happiness Alliance Nonprofit Organization is gearing up a membership drive we could use help with as well as other fun plans.
So, dream big. Make a plan. Create new experiences and make new friends! And have so much fun doing what you want to! You can always feel even better than you do right now!
Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief
