Letting go and recreating

I'm having a hard time letting go. I can't seem to let go of my "old life" and get moving in a new direction.

Over the last two years I've had to mourn the loss of some very important people and family structures. I lost my mom to breast cancer, I lost my dad to his grief, I lost the family structure as I had known it, and I lost my partner and love of my life (so I thought) to heartache.

There is an unexpected aftermath to all this. Now I find myself mourning the loss of something that hadn’t even happened yet… parts of my life. I hadn’t been able to put my finger on exactly what it was and with the help of the wonderful counselor it was pin pointed. It’s the intangibles, some of them fresher than others. The thoughts of my mom not being around to see my children and be that wonderful grandma that she would be, my dad not being the person I thought he would be in my life and preparing that I might not ever get him back, and the changes associated with the ending of the relationship.

I usually welcome change. I get bored and feel stagnant when there aren’t some changes up in the mix every couple of years but this feels different. I’ve felt overwhelmed, then eased into feeling settled again and then *bam* another hit. I was wrapping my head around how different life would be with my mom gone, but I also had a new life I was creating with the Ex. That gave me some focus. I put a lot of thought into how different life would be with him being in the military. We talked about it quite a lot, both of us wanting to make sure that I was prepared and going into this with open eyes. I had wrapped my head around the idea and committed to it. Then that all flew out the window too.

It’s been hard for me to just change gears. Plugging along and then “Oh shit, what do I do now?” The time it took me to settle into this new life, it feels like it’s going to take me just as long to let go and work on another new life. I’m not that patient!

My life has had major changes and needs reconstruction. I want to embrace this as an opportunity to recreate. I’ve been trying, I really have. I’ve taken on some new hobbies, I’ve gotten back into taking care of me with my fitness and diet and I’ve given myself permission to really be my own woman and write my own rules for my life. BUT (of course there is a but) I’m still feeling lost.

I’m holding on to the thoughts of what I no longer have. It’s harder than I thought to transition back, start on a new plan, and get moving on the implementation.

Why is it so hard to let go of a part of your life that didn’t even get the chance to materialize?