Sad and Serene

My sponsor tells me I'm grieving my relationship with my parents, that it will never be what I wanted as a child, a young adult, and now a middle-aged woman. I realized at a meeting yesterday that being sad, which is a feeling one gets from grief, is okay. That I can still be serene. In other words, serenity doesn't mean happiness - jumping up and down with joy. It means contentment and acceptance. This really helped me to realize that it's okay to feel sad. It's part of my process in recovery. Plus, just realizing this lifted my spirits since I stopped beating myself up over being sad. It is what it is, and today is a better day.