Losing

It's not all that it's cracked up to be.  Losing certainly is not an easy experience, but even in the short term it often proves  an amazingly efficacious  element of life.  Suddenly I recall that old song, "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do,"  and it weaves easily into my train of thought.  The losses that came each time my life broke off a familiar piece and threw me into  new territory, well, those losses were both frightening and thrilling.  Sometimes it was hard to breathe, but never gasping for long, I can now see there was forward movement.  Lurches and leaps, stumbling and bumbling, the dance less than graceful, but there was a rhythm to it!  Even when it was a leap into  deep darkness, i've learned the benefits, and that it's still quite necessary to make a grand jette from time to time.  


And then light is supposed to come, or some kind of graceful landing.  But  because the sequence of darkness and light isn't always predictable, the trick is to believe that it is actually, mostly inevitable. It's  also quite useful to remember that nothing stays the same for long.  Then that mysterious  timing  that keeps me living on the crazy-making edge of life isn't all bad.  


For example, the blue (with a tint of violet) jacaranda trees in UCLA's sculpture garden come to mind and perhaps bolster my assertion.  I hope they are still there.  It's been a long time since I first saw them and they were wonderful!  What did I know about the mess they made when their blossoms fell?  Would I have cared? That fabulous blue hue, so visually stunning, was priceless!  Do I lament the loss of that spectacle? Absolutely! But seasons of life and changes of locale notwithstanding, there is an up-side:  they bloom every year and I can still remember! 


And  now another example, as my thought wanders off to focus on that job I wanted so much, and did not get.  It was the 80's, and becoming a staffer at Chris Brownlie AIDS Hospice in L.A. was what I dreamed of after finishing my graduate degree program.  Coursework, a practicum, lots of volunteer work and empathetic motivation made me feel fairly well qualified.  So when a position opened, I applied and interviewed and waited hopefully.  The call came, and I lost out because another person was (surprise, surprise) a bit more qualified.  The director did offer genuine encouragement though, saying that in the near future there'd likely be another chance because they were expanding quickly.  Nevertheless, losing out was hard  for me and I was discouraged.  


But another chapter actually did open a few weeks later when I got a call during my workday at the hospital in Santa Monica.  The same director had managed to break through my current  employer's human resources wall and called to ask if I could come back that day for another interview.  I was heading to the Valley after work that day and said yes, I could stop and see him.  When I got there, two other key staffers were present for our meeting.  After introductions, the narrative began. They told me that the person hired for the job I did not get had taken a brief trip to Mexico before his scheduled start date.  He had a bout of montezuma's revenge on his return, and ended up in the emergency room. Unfortunate, to be sure, I thought, but ... "and he died."  "WHAT?" "He died." The death was sudden, shockingly unexpected, not AIDS-related and probably not montezuma's revenge!  So they offered me the job and I took it.  Far fetched as it sounds, even now this real event does strongly suggest that losing is not all it's cracked up to be!


Who cannot share stories about the positive aftermath of losing?  We all lose things and people, but losing  opportunities, jobs, income, youth, health, agility, hopes , homes and even memories ... well, when I look at it again, I often see that losing, even excruciating loss, isn't all bad.