Wearing: Taupe + Cream

Friday, September 30, 2011

For my friend, Sherissa...
thinking of you and wishing your father was still present with us.

Change is an inevitable part of life, bringing bright skies one day and dark clouds the next.  Life can be comfortable and then, without warning, tilt to a place that is completely unrecognizable.  We never see it coming...never know when the heavy hand of pain will knock, knock, knock at our door. 

Blouse and bag: GAP  Skirt: HandM  Shoes: Target Peony  Barrett: Anthro

The sudden awareness that the impossible can happen to you comes in so many different ways.  It's that moment when the father of five children loses his job; when that 'still young' grandma is diagnosed with terminal cancer; when a loved one's life is abruptly ended; or when a small child loses her eyesight.
There is no slow motion.
No warning.
The scuttle and bustle of normal life screeches to a halt and you find yourself in a place where suddenly, there is nothing but pain.

We are women...we hurt deeply. We love not faintly or weakly, but passionately, personally and lavishly. Lots of love brings with it the potential for lots of pain, and having loved our best, we still feel we have loved inadequately.  We mourn the loss of our fathers, our brothers, our sisters, mothers and friends with fierce intensity.  Those we have truly adored, we will always love, and that which was deeply felt, we will always feel...yet in those moments when our skies turn gray, we have no choice but to carry on--no matter how we wish the world would stop spinning so we might regain equilibrium.

Society might prefer us to brush our pain under the rug.  People say you'll get over it time.  One day, they say, you'll pass through the darkness and tears and step into the sunshine again, a stronger and happier person.  And it's true, one day you will--but in some moments there is nothing more healing than having a good cry...taking time to contemplate how altered and defined your life has been by loving and losing.

It's true, one day the light will pierce through the heavy blanket of clouds.  From a high place, you'll look back across the distance you've traveled and be astounded at how the bright hues of joy weave together with the deep shades of sorrow.  But today might not be that day and until then...
For every tear, a memory
For each memory...a smile...



6 comments:

  1. Beautiful post. From the heart, honest and so true. Thank you Kristina.

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  2. Hi Kristina,

    I have been following your blog for a few months and I really like your French-European style – you dress really smart!

    I enjoy your messages and I was touched by the profoundness of this last one. It makes me think of a beautiful text I read years ago when reading a book and it is more or less this:

    A wave starts its birth deep in the ocean, grows up to a full wave and repeats itself in a periodic and regular fashion over both time and space developing crests and troughs. As the end of its travel it breaks on the sand or on rock and dies as it approaches the beach.

    If we consider the wave as an expression of water emerging from the infinite and neverending ocean the wave is not dead… All waves are different but water is everywhere and always the same. When the wave dissolves itself on the sand it does not die but integrates and embodies itself back in the big perennial ocean.

    I like this approach where life is seen as a neverending continuum, a sort of energy that comprises much more than our own personal space. Life (life as the big canvas) is made up of several deaths and several births just as our day to day life encompasses several “little” deaths and countless “rebirths”.

    Cheers,
    FP (alias)

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  3. I was just wondering if you would consider making a grey sweater dress for me, like the one that you did last spring/winter. I did bid on it on ebay, but alas did not win it.

    RuthChurchill@gmail.com

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  4. Thank you, Kristina. I read your blog but don't often comment, but today I wanted to tell you I'm grateful for your words. I used to follow a ton of fashion blogs and now only stick to a few, and the few that remain are because of the blogger's voice. Your words are always seasoned with grace and encouraging to me. I have been mourning a loss and this is what I needed to hear today.

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  5. I'm new to your blog. I just wanted to let you know how moved I am by this post. May you and Sherissa have long and happy lives.
    Ellyse

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  6. I just stumbled upon your blog, and I feel as if I have hit gold. Recently it's been hard for me to become inspired, but you have opened this whole new door for me. Your beautiful writing to your flawless sense of style.

    xoxo -rae

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