by guest author Danielle Daily
I cried over an old chair.
Today I donated a chair I’ve had for more than 15 years to Goodwill. I could see the chair sitting there abandoned among the piles of other unwanted things in my rearview mirror, and as I drove away, tears started to roll down my cheeks. I felt a strong urge to turn around and put it back in my car or at least go back and take a picture of it.
At first, I was surprised because I wasn’t sure why I was crying. Then I realized my emotional body remembered something my mind had forgotten.
That chair was one of the first things we bought when we purchased our first house. Two twenty-somethings moving into their first place and trying to figure out together how to furnish our home with so many dreams ahead of us.
It felt strange to find myself crying over that chair because I rarely feel grief about that situation anymore. I’ve healed and moved forward and I know the life I have now and the life that is ahead of me is so much happier and fulfilling than the life I had before my marriage ended.
However, some triggers are still there, but they are less about the relationship that was lost and more about the dreams that died with that loss.
It’s hard to lose a dream, maybe even harder than losing a person.
I continue to dream (and fulfill) new dreams, but I know I’m not the only one who really cared about a vision I had for the future and still sometimes feels sad to know it’s gone.
Maybe you were not here for that part of my story. I’ve been through some things that really hurt but I kept going. I just wanted you to know I know how that feels in case you only see my smiling photos and don’t know I’ve been in that dark place, too.
If you’re hurting, I encourage you to keep going. Those hard times will get further and further apart and you’ll be amazed at the life that opens up before you once the most intense grief is past. It’s worth it to keep going! It will still hurt sometimes, but it will also get better! I promise.
Danielle Daily is a TEDx speaker, author of Dear Self, I Love You! Keep Going!, anthropologist, mentor, and yogi. Also, most importantly, she loves people who are scary smart, wearing red lipstick, and discovering new things to share with her fans and followers. To that end she hosts a podcast, The Suddenly Single Show.
