New Depths of Joy in the Tapestry

Emotions always rise with every drive into or out of Las Vegas. Grief, sorrow, the deep ache of missing what was…all reveal their aliveness and vibrancy. The city holds so many memories and for me, so much loss. Sometimes on these drives, it feels like a timeline shift happens. I’m certain that if I take the Durango exit off the 215 and head home, I’ll find Jeff there with the kids discussing where we’d go to dinner or planning the next family adventure. Then boom, a snap back to reality, “Oh, right. He crossed over nearly twenty years ago.”

It’s more than just Jeff or raising our kids…it’s the houses I lived in, the neighborhood where I grew up, the gazillion places memories were made, NU Equipment, the water district, outlying adventures…the list goes on. With each familiar place and space I pass, the floodgates of remembrance open and inevitably, sparks of sadness ignite into gentle waves of grief.

This week’s drive was different. I took a new route, not just to my destination, but within myself. It felt like a whisper, an invitation to go deeper in and beyond the sadness. At first I felt like I would be dishonoring the grief, short changing the memories, by-passing the sorrow…then the whisper returned, inviting me to surrender into the depth. 

Taking a calming breath, allowing the pool of tears to be, I surrendered into the invitation. As I did, I found love and joy beneath the sorrow. A more pure authentic joy and love, radiant and alive. I know joy and love but this truly was a whole new level for me.

I began to see, through a renewed lens, that every memory, not just painful or those of intense loss, remain vibrantly alive. All are alive, all hold emotions, and all carry a vibrancy of love and joy. The laughter and tears, the ordinary and extraordinary, the belonging and becoming, all the memories…they all continue to live and vibrate, not just in the spaces and places of Las Vegas but here, within my heart alongside each other.

You’ve probably heard the quote, “Grief only exists where love lived first.” That day, I fully felt into this truth more deeply. I consciously encouraged all the feels to rise…the pain of grief, sorrow, and missing, along with love, joy, and union.

It’s been a few days since that drive, and I’m recognizing that one particular feeling doesn’t have to, nor does it want to outweigh another. None are absent from the whole. I realize now how often I parse out emotions, feelings, memories, and events. This isn’t inherently wrong and sometimes maybe the very right thing to do. They are each their own yet together are beautifully woven into the tapestry of me. 

There it is, as it has always been, the weaving of my life. I simply failed to be with and to see it as a whole, choosing more often to single out memories, moments, and emotions instead of recognizing how together they form the unique tapestry of my life woven by the red threads of love and joy. 

As I was writing this, I kept thinking, I’m over thinking what it is I must do to access this purity of joy. Then, looking up, I caught the dance of several prisms in the kitchen. It was brief, honestly within a moment they were gone. The sunlight fractured through the top of the paper towel holder. I was so grateful to witness and not miss that moment. 
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That fleeting dance of light was a moment in the journey. The vibrancy and aliveness remains, now woven into the all. All the memories, spaces, events, emotions, feels, every drive down familiar places…nothing is separate or lost. All are woven together by the red threads of love and joy, secured with gratitude, creating this unique tapestry of me.