Understanding what it means to lose is one of the hardest realities to face in life. There is very little which can match that feeling of absolute despair, that dark void which fills your entire being for what seems to be both an eternity and split second. The cynicism which can spawn, the resentment of life, and much more can spawn from this simple understanding, twisting a person from whom they were before. For many people, this feeling has been something which has been experienced at least once in their life, if not multiple times. And, for those who have not experienced such a feeling, they truly are the blessed.
However, this is not the simple losing of a pen or toy. It is the loss of something beloved, something which we consider an inherent part of ourselves, even if we don’t recognize it. It could be parting ways with a close friend, the death of someone close, or even seeing something you have been a part of end in complete finality. In truth, it is one of the cruelest parts of life that always seems impossible to run away from. It is also one of the most destructive moments in a person’s life that can send one tumbling into an abyss; that place in life where it seems like the light has been stripped away and all that is left is silent torment.
But, loss is also one of the greatest mentors that life can offer. When we lose, we are faced with not only the tragedy of life, but our own weakness when it is brought upon us. These moments of crisis, of loss so profound there is a breaking inside, it teaches us about who we are, and makes us decide who we want to be. Not only that, but it allows us to understand something deeper about life, about being alive that cannot be commonly taught.
In my own experience with loss, with an instance where half of what I never knew or considered my life faded away into a seeming oblivion, I shut down completely. In the face of my greatest terror and loss I steeled myself to the point where I lacked any empathy, forgot emotion, and did my best to not live a life but play out a sad existence. It was only after being shown this nature I developed by the people who love me that I decided who I would be for my life. That I would live in honor and memory of the half of me which died and reclaim the world and future for myself.
When it comes to loss, though, everyone reacts differently, and there is a quote from the series “Arrow” in Season 2 which applies the context of all this, of how loss affects people, and shapes who they become: “Sooner or later, we all go through a crucible... Most believe there are two types of people who go into a crucible. The ones who become stronger from the experience and survive it, and the ones who die. But there's a third type. The ones who learn to love the fire and choose to stay in their crucible because it's easier to embrace the pain when it's all you know anymore.”
Often in that darkness, the loss and grief which intrude and infuse themselves into our lives, the world becomes a mirror of this pain. It seems lacking of mercy, and that it can never be better. The issue with that thinking is that you have every ounce of strength possible to rip apart every ounce of pain and darkness. If you cannot find the strength on your own, the people around you can always help. Life is this constant struggle between finding happiness while trudging through the weight and sadness in the world, and sometimes it gets the better of all of us.
What it winds up being though, is a moment of choice for ourselves, and whether or not we succumb to our pain and grief, or learn to work past it and try to heal in some way is up to us.
