Sunrise, sunset

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the years…

It’s all about our beginnings and our endings and how the days ebb and flow in between.

I have always loved that song, from the musical Fiddler on the Roof, with such an enlightened meaning full of beauty, insight and strength we possess in life, but there is also a version sung by Bright Eyes, vocalist Conor Oberst depicting a darker, dismal picture.

A sort of day in, day out depression sensed that he can’t escape, like sitting and staring at a clock; if you do nothing but watch it, the hands creep slowly, but if you turn from it, what happens to the time? It seems there’s never enough of it.

Universally, we all look forward with great vigor and enthusiasm to new starts, sometimes with anxiety of the unknown looming before us; it’s like a mystery, and it’s exciting, but what happens when we finally come to a finish line?

Sometimes we might be let down or question the meaning of the journey in order to evaluate how we have evolved. Or maybe we feel rewarded for the opportunities and experiences it presented, for the wisdom and knowledge we’ve gained.

It has molded us, given us character, and we wouldn’t be who we are without it.

Lessons of life have somehow touched our souls and enabled us to grow.

But what’s in the cards for us when we can’t let go of something, when we can’t accept its end? Do we become stuck and blocked? Our hearts are sort of frozen, and it’s not always a visible state on the outside, but perhaps something buries us on the inside.

Painful grief has its way of remaining a part of us, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a dream, the yearning of a memory to be recreated or revised, the sadness we feel when estranged from a relative.

All these natural events in our lives can affect us for indefinite amounts of time. The clock in our heart creeps.

So what’s a gal to do? I once read that obstacles in our path are not there to block us, but to redirect us. Their purpose is not to interfere with our happiness, but to point out new routes to our happiness.

So I think, take a moment to really look at the sunset, visualize the process it went through. After the rain and wind we can learn to glow again; there is beauty in an ending when we can appreciate the feeling it left on us.

They are moments in time of sheer beauty and light, like shooting stars; before you know it, they’re gone, but for the time they grace us with their presence, they are magnificent.

And we always need guidance, like the ear of a friend or therapist. It seems lately therapists are like a cup of coffee or tea in the morning – a total necessity and they perk us up, too.

We can work though the sunsets in order to anticipate the sunrises – evaluate our thoughts and actions in order to understand where they stem from and why. And just move forward.

Life is a series of inclines and declines, and what matters is that we wear the right shoes. Oh, and don’t forget to soak in all the light when we reach the peaks…

Ciao Bella

Posted by Janel M. Harrison on June 20, 2013. Filed under Columns,Girl-2-Girl,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry