People talk about how when you have a big loss or sudden trauma in your life that it makes you realise what really matters.
It’s usually talked about as though this is a positive. That focusing on what really matters will make your life better.
The problem is that since losing my daughter, barely anything matters.
And how do you make your life worth living when basically nothing matters?
All that matters now is my two living kids. I live so they will. So that hopefully some day, they will have happy moments. I hope that they will feel they have a life worth living, like I used to.
But when you struggle to find meaning in anything else, life is really bloody awful.
I used to find meaning in my business, in travel, in moments with friends. And while connections with my friends, extended family and the new people I’m meeting in my support networks are really important to me, they don’t fill me with meaning.
Travel is a nice distraction, but it no longer feels meaningful.
The small bit of advocacy work I have done to try to make the hospital that killed Soraya change feels good for a second, but then I remember that Soraya is dead and it has no meaning either.
Realising that barely anything really matters seems like a one way trip to depression, or worse.
It is not a positive.
I have mostly accepted that I have to keep living even though Soraya cannot. If you have never lost a child, I don’t think you can realise just how hard that is to accept.
And if I have to keep living, maybe I should try to make my life good and not completely awful.
But how do I make my life good when barely anything really matters?
I’m trying to go through the motions. I see friends. I have started working (a little) again. But all it does is remind me how pointless it is. Because she’s still gone and I’m still here.
How do you find meaning in life when barely anything matters?
No mention of your husband?
I don’t feel like being in a relationship gives my life meaning.