There Are Moments

There are moments. That my friend, is a fact. Every month, day, hour is made of tiny, individual moments. But, there are moments and there are MOMENTS. Those split seconds in time that you remember forever because they spoke to you on a visceral level. These moments are not grandiose. On the contrary, the moments I speak of are quiet, subtle ... but life changing and soul altering.

A lot has happened in my life recently and I am just now able to write about all that's transpired. Sometimes pixels seem to be a cold way of expressing such intense, raw emotion. On July 1st, my Karmalized fiance and I came to a fork in the road on our journey of love. As much as it pained both of us, we could not keep traveling in the same direction. One of us needed to go left, the other, right. We walked backwards for awhile, watching each other, as the space between us grew. Finally, rounding two separate bends, we lost sight of "us" completely. It was at this heart-shattering juncture that I was forced to look ahead and face my uncertain future, as me, not we.

It's been just over one month and there's a strange, numbing calm surrounding my everyday. This feeling of being an empty, blank canvas creates space for MOMENTS to occur. These MOMENTS gently guide you back from the darkness and towards the light.

Here are a few of my most recent MOMENTS:

1) MOMENT: Seeing one black umbrella lying on the sidewalk, open, on a sunny summer L.A. day.

MEANING: The possibility of death.

FACTS: The umbrella belonged to an old homeless man who lived in that exact spot on the sidewalk in a chair, sheltered by 3 umbrellas. In 2 years, I never saw him move once. One night when it was pouring rain outside, I drove by, shocked he was still there enduring the frigid, wet weather. I wanted to save him, but I didn't know how. I'm ashamed to say I was too scared to approach him with blankets, etc. as I'd never even seen his face, always covered by umbrellas. Sadly, my fear of the unknown,intensely horrible situation won over, but every time I drove by, I looked for him. Last week, I looked for him once again, but only saw the lone black umbrella. I don't know what happened to the man with no home, but in half of one second, I realized how much pain and suffering one human can endure before it becomes too much. The lost black umbrella reminded me that the despair caused by a broken heart may feel life threatening at points, but in reality is simply a scratch.

2) MOMENT: Hearing three loud honks from the horn of a U-Haul moving truck driven by Derrek, my once fiance.

MEANING: Signaling the abrupt ending of a great love story and the beginning of my new book, title unknown.

FACTS: Everything of mine was finally packed up. It felt like we were getting divorced even though we'd never married. I told Derrek to honk when he was outside with the moving truck. When I heard the horn I was standing in the now empty living room and I looked up at the door, paralyzed. Time seemed to stop for a moment, allowing brutal reality to gush over me. We were really breaking up and I was really moving out. The time to leave had just arrived and it was honking at me. I never knew the arrival of a U-Haul truck could convey such profound sadness.

More moments to come in my next post ...

With Gratitude for Guiding Moments
~L~