Grief, fear, and never being alone ever again.

It is Sunday morning, July 23rd. I just decided to do a 10-day trip to the Azores this Wednesday. Something spontaneous, something unknown, something in nature. Something I love doing and am good at.

I closed my laptop and went outside to see whether I could still find our cat Pippa walking around, as she had been ill lately and was having her last days. Quite quickly I found her, motionless, under the entrance of my parents’ house, where she most likely died that past night. It was expected, which helped make sense of the goodbye a little, but that goodbye meant letting go of that which for me represented unconditional love, safety, a home. 

The combination of her death and the spontaneous solo trip around the corner showed me how much fear I actually felt for being alone. To be honest, never in my life have I felt this fearful, let alone for a trip. I was on the verge of turning around and cancelling for the three days leading up to the departure, and even until the moment we touched ground on São Miguel. I had perfectly good reasons to not go, but still there was this constant spark, this wave of joy; a feeling that pulled me through and kept me going. 

I could observe the trembling fear in my body. I could observe, which made me not push it away or give in to it immediately, but to give it space, to be present with it, and to breathe into it. 

The space I gave to the fear actually also created space for the most magical things to happen. As nothing was fixed and I didn’t have any plans, accomodation, rental car, friends; anything could happen. And it did. In the most magical way I couldn’t even have imagined on forehand, and barely can describe now. 

Facing this deeply rooted fear led me to get a glimpse of the other side of the coin; taking the hand of the fear, but to still keep going and discover what is behind it. In stead of living for a need for external safety and security, I tasted living from a feeling of trust. Trust in being taken care of, trust in things turning out right.

It made me realize that we would never be together again, but I would never be alone again either.

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