The Heart in Times of the Unknown

Maureen Spengel

This time last year, I was still reeling from the loss of my first “true” love. That once tragic loss, ultimately proved to be the best thing for me; spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally (and possibly even financially). Through that separation, I gained what is of the utmost importance to me: that is freedom and independence. I live life, and each day, with the intention to find joy in the mundane, to treat others with kindness and consideration, and to appreciate life as if it were a gift that could be taken from me at any moment. If the coronavirus pandemic has taught me anything, it is that life is all too precious, all too precarious, and all too fragile to be diminished under the pressures of our usual futile anxiety and fleeting angst – I am speaking of those unwanted emotions that warp our perceptions toward negativity on an otherwise flawless day – days which we now spent sheltering in place, away from a life that was once so free. Life, as we know it, in all its peculiar manifestations, does not shift into the shapes we insist it should either morph or solidify into. Life is fluid — we either choose to move with it, or to resist it — the more tension we build in attempts to challenge life’s ceaseless pressures, the more the weight of the unknown suffocates our inner spirit. One day, and hopefully soon, the life that we once knew, will feel closer to us than it does now. But that life will be much different, and it will be different in that we will understand just how often our greatest losses prove to be our greatest spiritual gains. As it is through the seemingly insurmountable inner turmoil, that we find the freedom to be.