The first
is that the other morning I woke up and started to cry. For someone who barely cried the first half
of her life at all, I’ve certainly done a lot of it the last year or two. And yet this was interesting. It was not crying because of something wrong,
or out of fear or grief. It’s like I had
reached a moment perhaps six months to a year from now where I am safe and
sound in the home and place of my choosing, surrounded by love and the music I
love, and I could let go and cry. It has
been a traumatic journey, really, no matter how I try to understate it. I recognize that on a deep level I chose it
for my soul’s growth. But even ignoring
many of the factors that I’ve mentioned before, the fact is that being a woman
alone in this world is no picnic, no matter what the specifics of your life may
be. And most of these sixty years, not
only did I not believe that “the
Universe was on my side” – I think I actively believed that Life was thwarting
me at every turn. I had internalized the
energy of a human battering ram, fighting tooth and nail just to live to see
another day.
And in the
blink of an eye, I have moved beyond that.
There is no material proof of that, of course, but it’s an inner
shift. I can feel it. “The strife is o’er.” Perhaps it’s just battle fatigue. I can’t “fight” any more, be it for love, attention,
validation or even bare bones survival. I
feel like I have simply stopped the frantic rowing, and am letting the stream
take my boat where it was meant to go in the first place.
Yet this
shift unleashed a soup of memories wanting attention. “Remember how traumatic this was?” “Remember
how hard that was?” “Remember how you almost didn’t make it on this occasion?” Remember, remember, remember… For the better
part of a day I was sucked into my hardest memories. In a strange way, these memories and events
have been my most loyal companions on the path.
They are afraid of being released and rejected, and I understand
that. I bless them. But my head and my heart also understand that
it’s time to unlock those chains and move forward. My intellect is gently taking me in hand and
saying, “Why are you revisiting this when it feels so bad? Why are you
revisiting this when it makes your heart hurt?”
Indeed. It’s so simple. As humans, we’ve been trained
to focus on the negative. It is not an
easy process to start to focus on love, joy, passion, the future and what you
love. Trauma is so addicting. It has taken me five or six years to break
the addiction. But it’s happened. I finally realize that when it feels bad, it is bad
for me, so I must focus on something
else. I can’t even perseverate on
the election campaign crisis, the climate crisis, the refugee crisis, or the
world’s traumas in any form right now. Even
one second of attention to all these things, one second of “righteous
indignation,” brings my inner battering ram back to life, and all it does is
batter me in the end. As I head into Act
II, all I seem to know is that I must focus exclusively on the highest level of
love and trust I am capable of, and hope that the ripple effects of this will
go out toward the rest of the world.
The last
realization came last night as I looked in the mirror. I did that thing that they say you should do,
really look yourself in the eye. I’ve
always found that to be excruciatingly hard, and have always looked away. And yet, this time I was able to do it. Yes, my mind’s eye could certainly “see” what
the world may see right now, but for the first time that I can remember, those
opinions literally melted away and all I saw was this confident, beautiful
being, ready for the next stretch of river.
I smiled at “her” and was proud of her.
I loved her. Yes, I love
her, present tense. And I believe that the
Divine loves her too and will work on her behalf. From this point forward, that is the only
opinion that matters.
An eventful
three days.