Wednesday, September 25, 2013

I realized recently that it's been a long time since I posted anything.  I just haven't felt that I had much to offer to the conversations of the world.  My journey feels as if it is becoming more and more personal and I am less inclined to put it out there for others to see.  There is also the feeling of an endless spiral of emotions and I simply don't feel it's useful to keep repeating it over and over in public.  There are old, ancient even, hurts that have nothing to do with this new grief and yet everything to do with it.  Hurts I'm not sure I'm ready to share.  Maybe it's simply winter and time to dive deep within instead of outward.  In any case, I find myself being more silent in my grief journey as it turns again and again on it's axis.  If I'm tired of the pain, certainly ya'll must be as well.  I am not gone, simply stepping cautiously right now.  I love that you are out there, listening.  Dont' give up on me.

Cloud Hidden

 
Cloud-Hidden

This chapter is closed now,
not one word more
until we meet some day
and the voices rising
to the window
take wing and fly.

Open the old casement
to the lands we have forgotten,
look to the mountains and ridgeways
and the steep valleys, quilted by green,
here, as the last words fall away,
the great and silent rivers of life
are flowing into the oceans,
and on a day like any other
they will carry you again,
abandoned,
on the currents you have fought,
to the place where you did not know
you belonged.

And just as you came into life
surprised
you go out again,
lifted,
cloud-hidden
from one unknown
to another
and fall and turn
and appear again in the mountains

not remembering
how in the beginning
you refused
to join,
could not speak of,
did not even know
you were that
deep
calm
welling
almost forgotten
spring
of eternal presence.


~ David Whyte ~
(Where Many Rivers Meet)
 
 

Monday, September 16, 2013

Grief and AA

And then today I woke up feeling pretty okay.  Not exactly cheerful, but not miserable.  I did laundry, picked basil and made pesto, put together a Thai Curry, made brownies, and found myself dancing around the kitchen to the Reggae song that came up on the Ipod.  Took Lulu for a long walk, cleaned the house.

Why, oh why, can't I just make this happen?  Why isn't there something, just one thing, I can do to change the bad times into okay times?  It's so frustrating.  Just having to put one foot in front of the other and get through. 

Maybe it's giving up trying to control it.  Maybe it's admitting that I have no control.  Maybe it's just the passage of time.  I'm starting to sound like an AA meeting.  Not so very different really.  All of us just trying to find a way to deal with our pain. 

Maybe it's that a friend is meeting me to get the materials to build the goat house.  Maybe it's that I didn't have to get up early and squeeze everything in before I went to work.

Maybe....but probably more likely the AA comparison. 

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Flying on Blind Faith

There is an online widows group that will set you up with a penpal.  I figured what the heck and signed up.  One woman wrote that she just couldn't do it right now and she hoped that was okay.  Okay?  Of course it's okay...my gosh I don't know what I can and can't do from one moment to the next.  The other woman and I have been writing back and forth.  Today as I was answering here I thought, "I should just post this.  It's exactly how life is right now."  So I am.  She asked me what I thought about getting a dog and talked some about her grief group telling her that joy and pain could exist at the same time.  So.....life, again.

Dear________,

It's been a horrible week and I have been simply putting one foot in front of the other. It's about all I can manage right now. I wanted to respond though. I dont know what happened....well, it was David's birthday and then a week later the six month anniversary of his death...but I got through those just fine then a week later I could barely get out of bed and I cry all the way to work and home again, and for no apparent reason while I'm home, or in the grocery store, or whatever. I HATE this. The therapist and grief group folks say it's normal. yay. I'm so angry and sad and grouchy and tired.

I have to say that the dog and cats save me most days. The dog because, well, she's a dog and is just so present and loving. the cats too but in a different way. And some days it is only the cats, dog, and chickens that get get me up and going and keep me going. It makes a big difference for me. Even though sometimes I wish I could just lay there and not be responsible for them. I dont know what I would do if I didn't have them. I highly recommend it.

I"m not really feeling the joy and pain simultaneously thing right now. I was for a while, but this last week has just been so hard. just hard, hard, hard. And yeah, no one really gets it who hasn't been here. I feel like I should be better now or people think I should. They tell me how great I look and how great I seem to be doing and I want to kick them. :)

Today I got up and got dressed to go to church and then couldn't walk out the door. I took all the church clothes off,  put on shorts and took the dog for a walk. crying. I just couldn't face it.

sometimes I feel like such an idiot. I change my mind about things from one second to the next. and half the time I have no idea what I want. I found myself in the grocery store today...Have to buy cat food! again the animals save me.....just taking these huge deep breaths to keep from falling apart, and it was all I could do to push the buggy and breathe. So it goes. I have to trust that it will get easier and better again. but I'm flying on blind faith right now.

I'm so glad you are out there!

dianne

Monday, September 9, 2013

Grace Love and Mercy

I wake up in the morning and immediately know.  It's back, this is going to be a hard one.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason to when the pain shows up, it just does.  I had to drag myself into reality this morning and force myself into the day.  Then everything that could possibly go wrong at work did.  Getting into the car to come home, I turned on the Ipod and "Our House" came on.  I used to consider that one of "our songs." 

"Our house is a very very very fine house, with two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard, now everything is easy cause of you..." 

Only it's not anymore.  Everything is harder.  Who do I tell about what happened today?  I had to load and unload two fifty pound bags of feed, take all the recycling, figure out the new damn health insurance, etc etc.  Nothing really that big a deal, except well....he should be here.

I was crying so hard driving home I almost pulled over a couple of times.  I found myself bargaining with God.  "Just make it all the way it used to be.  Bring him back.  Please, I'll do anything."  I hate feeling so alone; one of the things I loved most was having a partner, having each other's backs, sharing the responsibilities. 

Deep breath.

Was it worth the cost?  yes, absolutely.  As our minister said in church: "It is only Grace, Mercy and Love that count when we are counting the cost."  And I would not trade the grace, love and mercy I received for anything.  It doesn't change the fact that I wish he would come back and that today nothing seems as if it will ever be that good again.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Enough

I am enough.  Brene Brown says that is the one thing to remember.  If I can remember that, then I can allow myself to be vulnerable which leads to connection and joy.  If I can't, then I live in shame and fear.  Simple little words, hard truth. 

I have struggled all my life to believe that I am enough. That I don't have to work even harder when someone is not pleased with me.  I don't have to be nicer, or quieter, or kinder, or easier.  If I am working harder than the other person is, then it's time to stop.  If someone asks me to do something for them and then they but up roadblocks or put down everything I suggest, I'm working harder than they are and it's time to stop. 

It makes my brain hurt to think about this and how to change it.  But it makes my heart soar.  I've been trying it out and it's scary, hard work but oh, the payoff!  I have been jumping through hoops for a group that said they needed my help.  Finally, I realized that I was working really really hard for them but they didn't like anything I did.  Every time I checked off a box, they added another one.  I've been in relationships like that too.  Every time I checked off a box, another one appeared.  There is no winning there.  I will never be good enough there, but I can be and am enough. 

I am enough.  And when I am in relationship with myself and/or another who sees that...wow, life opens up into joy and ease and grace.  And when two people treat each other as if they are enough, just as they are...that is love, that is grace, that is friendship.  That is a gift beyond value.  And it is more than enough.  More than enough to change a life, to change the world.

Trust me,  there are no qualifiers:  YOU ARE ENOUGH. 

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Kintsukuroi

Kintsukuroi:  the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold resin, making it more beautiful in the broken places.

The wound is the place where the Light enters you. (Rumi)

We are all broken and wounded in this world. Some choose to grow strong at the broken places. (Harold J Duarte-Bernhardt)

Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, it's how the light gets in (Lenoard Cohen)

Every culture has their version of this truth.  At least I hope it's a truth because there have been so many broken parts of me I have to believe they had a purpose.  I should qualify as a priceless work of art at this point.  But honestly, I love the image of our brokeness healing stronger and more beautifully than whatever perfection we thought we had before. 

I met with a friend today, someone I love very much and had not seen in about six years.  And I saw in her all the beauty of her life, her joy, her pain, her fears, making her one of the most lovely people I know.  And somehow she sees something of that in me as well. We talked a lot about the broken parts of the last six years.  And  I had this image of us both sitting there on a bench, talking, and shining like the sun.