this jerky journey

“Slowness remembers, hurry forgets.

Softness remembers, hardness forgets.

Surrender remembers, fear forgets.

It is beautifully difficult to remember who we are.

But we help each other every time we fill the cup of truth and hold each other up after drinking from it.”    (Mark Nepo)

In the initial days of deep loss we lose ourselves.  All we can do is feel the sudden brokenness of our world and ourselves.  Who we have always been falls at our feet in a million pieces.  And all we can do is “turn ourselves into a function” (as Mark Nepo writes)  simply going through the motions of being alive. 

Then, at some point . . . and that point is different for each of us . . .  we wake up.  We notice that we have forgotten who we are in the midst of this shattering change and begin the jerky journey back and forward, back and forward. . . . toward some re-membered version of who we were. . . . into who we are.  It is “beautifully difficult” because it is our real work.  And we can help each other when we do not turn away.