“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.”
– Larry Stansbury
As you read this post, which was meant to come out earlier, I want to take a moment of silence for everyone who did not come into 2025 with us. The people we still hold close but are not with us. Shed a tear or two for them but know though they are not here with us to hold our hands they are still holding us through life with a different purpose.
The first holiday season after losing a loved one is always the hardest and in all honesty I didn't believe it until I realized it was January 1st and I still felt like I was sitting in the hospital holding my mom's hand for the last time. I didn't even realize all the holidays had passed by me because I was going through the motions of life and not actually living in it. Grief is a funny thing because as I repeat day in and day out, it hits you like waves and not always with a wave of emotion that makes you want to scream, sometimes its silent and makes you go numb, or makes you disappear in your head or even just stare at something off into the distance for a couple seconds too long. I have found myself in moments sitting in bed when I feel my chest cave in, my heart drops and those are the exact moments that I realize, I need my computer and I need to write. I let the tears flow as my fingers fly across the key board and I write what I feel then, in that moment knowing that what I want to put here is emotion, pure unfiltered, uncaring emotion that is truly, deeply connected with grief in order to help myself and others process what it is exactly.
As my winter break comes to an end I am faced with school, tennis and an injury all at once. The film of oblivion is slowly getting peeled away and reality is slowly creeping up to get me. My rotator cuff is still torn and very much stabbing me with pain and even though I am doing my PT, haven't picked up a racket in a month and have been taking care of it I am still faced with the very real reality of being benched. For those of you who really know me I hate sitting still, especially when everyone else is running around. These past couple weeks I have been mentally preparing myself to sit and watch while everyone plays and competes in the sport that I cannot live without. The longest I have gone without playing is 3 months after my hip surgery, it was the hardest 3 months of my life. Tennis has been such a large part of my life that I never realized just how much I relied on it for an outlet until it got taken away, again. However, I am also realizing how addicted I am to tennis and that I do need to find a way to live without it because it is not going to be around for the rest of my life. I have chosen to take these next two months while I heal my body to also heal my mind. Sports are gruesome on the body, the mind, and the soul and that is why when athletes burn out, they are destroyed. In order to keep myself from completely burning out I need to take a step back and find a way to balance it all in ordert o protect my body, my mind and my soul.
NEWS!
If you haven't noticed I have changed the website up a little bit and added some new features. In the new released version I have added a new blog home page, a forum and a members feature. This will allow me to get more nitty gritty into environmental issues that can be short reads for when you are looking for something fast without all the grueling info. It also gives you all as readers a chance to interact more about enviornmental news and issues you all find in your daily lives. I love the community I have here and I hope that I can grow it to more readers this year and expand my audience with these new features.
Thank you everyone for starting 2025 with me and thank you for being part of the Where In the World is Zoe community!
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