Five of these days, one each of the last five years,
I have been in the cyclical existence of hell,
and while the promise given is for there to be no more tears,
It’s not looking very well.
For if there is a heaven, and I get to see you there,
I’ll offer you a promise you can be sure that I will keep.
The next time I lay touch upon your golden hair,
I assuredly will weep.
Through my grasp it slips, the grip’s loosening over the gap of gasps as it becomes a familiar feeling, the reeling in of what’s real, what’s really happening, the fastening of the winds whipping the sounds of silence violently through my soul, now on the cusp of cold, screaming silently into a sound chamber where only I remember your name forever and when to honor… except for, I dismayed, could say nothing, except for the engrained tear exchange for the DNA’s reframe of the refrain through my brains terrain of dry docks and torrential rain.
Guess what? I am grieving again… Again… Again… Again… was silently. The last four days. Grief. Again.
And I’ve been holding it into myself because let’s face it, who really cares?… Yeah I know that we all say that we care, because of course we do. But at the end of the day isn’t it just another emotion, again? Again?
This is not the kind of emotion that you can just not have… Yes you can work on triggers, you can work on breathing, you can work on a holding it and letting it be and acknowledging it,… But eventually it goes away, again. It’s not something that is “Dealt ” with the never to resurface. It does resurface, again. And sinks and rises again.
And I don’t think that people don’t care, because I know in their form of caring they do, we do. We all have our capacities. The closest people in my relationships don’t even ask me how my heart is doing in relation to the death of my daughter. It’s hard to want to go there for them… Again.
I think I have one friend who actually inquires about Archaea specifically. So I know at least one out of my hundreds of friends and even at that the closest people in my life… Someone cares. Which helps phase the day… Again.
But moreover I think the bitterness comes from within. Because the levels that grief touches are constantly surprising me. Over and over I find myself saying… “Am I still feeling this again?” “Am I really at this moment again”…
And again I find myself saying… “No one has ever been here before. Not even you. (to myself) No one has ever experienced this moment in time and space emotion heart and brain. I am the first to navigate this. People are welcome to be on or off my ship, but the captain I must remain, and feel all these waters out… And search for a stable ground. “. …again.
Among all the other shifts, I could feel this one floating about my essence. Taunting, in its own subtle form, only offering enough aloofness to keep my instincts peaking. It could have been that a friend gave the plain prophecy or rather New Years resolution in disguise. He knew I knew., but to know, and breathe the actual thickness of the air where it should be light and brisk… that is the knowledge. also, the knowledge to come.
A few deep personal issues have come to a head the last week and it was expected. I felt ironic that the timing of what I spoke about months ago have taken place in my observation within such the time frame and now I am facing many things full face.
I have seen my face in the reflection in each person I have encountered and applied some form of judgment on. It is simply amazing how much the judgement I don’t actually pass on others gets absorbed by my own interpretation of who I am. I take in all these assumptions and let the direction of opinion be stewarding.
Now after have been going through some life changing moments recently, I observe that there is a new beginning. It’s esoteric but timely and is most assuredly described as cliche
the free resolution turned my faded goal of yesteryear back in toward my interrogation of self and scrutinized the very thing I keep running into. Blame. And in the process of finding happiness in the midst of darkness I keep pulling the cloak further over the progress.
Entering the new year was to represent another day. Another chance to show who I am, despite how I think I am turning into one crazy deluded woman on a mission to understand pain.
Entering the new year was to be a breath of fresh and ready filled air. Oxygenated with aspirations and inspirations.
I did not anticipate having to exit the end of the year watching what I do not have. Nor did I even come close to anticipating that to bring in the new year I’d once again be breathing the heavy air that holds my body down to the seat so that it doesn’t rudder away with the speed of which my heart beats.
But I was thankful for the company that I was blessed with. It leveled my heart just enough so I could see and have the knowledge that now I know, it is time to focus on intentional healing. Even in the pain that lingered from precious and previous days, there was a love holding my understanding or at least holding enough of me so that I felt secure enough to express my dualities of existence in the previously mentioned experiences.
Entering into the new year has provided ample opportunities to utilize the information gathered through last. It is an energy that is a risen vibration, waiting to be tapped into. Human conditions are fighting just as strong to be in charge and I am in the sense of feeling astral.
I can only hope that more of us will continue to heed the purity of instinct, deliverance or receiving the messages. Internal work. Eternal work.
i picked up a book last that was given to me shortly after Archaea passed. i was accepting of the gesture then but knew i would never read it. it was a christian author. it has been sitting next to my bed for over a year and then recently moved to a pile of other books that i put on the ground by my side table in my room. i read the foreword. i read a few sentences of the first part of the intro. something has changed within me.
i wasnt changed because i decided to give this book an opportunity and it changed my life. no, the change has been taking place this whole time. since the day she died. but it was the fact that i was willing to even open this book is what the indicator of change was. the idea that i had enough grace in my world to offer space for God.
hahaha…. me, human… offering space, holding space, for God. what a riot. but that, is exactly what i am doing, in a very human form. i have cleared out a place from where my anger has been bunkering in my soul and allowed a gap for lighter living to take up its residence instead.
this has been so difficult.
this morning i made a cup of tea and sat in Archaea’s corner. i brought the book with me to the rocking chair. this rocking chair that i was supposed to be rocking my beautiful baby daughter in, singing to her sweetly while she nurses to slumber. the rocking chair that i was supposed to rock with Solly on one knee and Archaea on the other to read story time and ogle the silly pictures and make silly sounds together. the rocking chair that has been in my family for generations and is a solid piece of framework to the home of which we live in.
back to reading the book. so i opened the book to pursue reading and the first few paragraphs hit me like a ton of bricks. it hasn’t told the story yet, but i have gathered that he too, has lost a child and in that present moment of the story, he was deep in the throes of double life and grief. my world.
he spoke of the reality that he was walking in there, into this public location filled with people, but alone in his pain. his pain. i read the rest of the chapter, but it was that takeaway that is poignantly haunting me. alone in HIS pain, while others are potentially sitting alone, in their pain, among the people. its absurd. all this pain. rubbing up on each others symptoms and diagnosis in the world of loss and grief.
it reminds me of the scene in ferngully where crysta puts her hand on the tree that was marked by zaks human affection and says, “can’t you feel its pain?” here is this tall beautiful ginormous and protecting tree surrounded by all the other trees and fauna and flora of the forest, yet still standing alone in this pain. and the irony here is that the human condition once again has afflicted something with pain. this amazing and overarching monument of the earth is surrounded by others of the like… a little similar looking on the outside. feeling their own twists of fury and fate in their design and growth, and appearing to stand alone. underneath it all though are those roots deep in the ground that are reaching outwardly toward freedom and also toward one another.
we all are experiencing or have experienced or will, a sense of loss, and grief and pain will inevitably become a process of the this humans living experience. not all stay there, and not all grief is felt on the same levels.
my grief is unknown.
i begin to realize that i, indeed, have not yet finished grieving. not that i ever will but this morning when i woke i was overcome with this sadness and i again felt so alone, and so so sad, and so so alone. and when sitting in Archaea’s corner reading this mans words of his pain, the one that i am regarding in the same category as mine, my heart broke a little more. he was or is not alone in his pain, i am there too. but i realized that there is no way that anyone can really understand that, unless you have been there. even then…can you really?
i felt a sadness. it was a sudden dense sadness that said i will always be alone in this. the ones that mostly get it have had their own membership to this unwanted club for a while. but that is not a comforting thought. another uncomfortable thought is that no one will ever be able to fully love me if they are not able to reach into my grief and sadness with me and hold my hand and heart so i can at least “feel” physical comfort, which is massive to my emotional process. i see that i need to be reached out to, sometimes prodded, sometimes offered space, about my grief.
i often feel like a burden. no one wants to hear about grief. no one wants to hear about pain. we all have it. we all have it one way or another. the reality is though, that i need to talk about it. and not to just anyone. that is what my blog is for. but to people who love me and care about me. to help me better understand where i am. to accept where i am and acknowledge the pain i am in. it can’t be gazed over briefly, creating a paraphrase and a summary of my state. sit in the space of sadness with me. i don’t need cheering up. i am a funny and witty person who finds humor in the darkest of hours. i dont need a smile. i have one that will beam brighter in my pain to light a path for those who need a light for themselves in their pain.
i need to be loved deeply during these times.
and that is a lot to ask of someone. so i don’t. rather i withdraw. into silence. into loneliness. and i try to do it alone.
or maybe i wont anymore. again i feel alone in this whole process. which again, i don’t understand. i am an open book. i feel like i am able to invite, welcome and sit with the darkest and the brightest and always offer that a love that i yearn to feel. it is an acceptance that this darkness is part of me. this darkness is why i shine so bright. but it is very difficult to shine sometimes. i feel like a lighthouse on a far distant shore shrouded in the thickest fog, that spins its light around and around hoping that there is a ship in the harbor still seeking the light. patiently waiting for the next rotation of discovery and bliss to come its way. because it will, if only it is willing to sit in the space of the void in the darkest of moments, and honor it.
ah there it is. that emotion. so familiar. never too far gone to be missed. not like the way i miss you.
my kids keep asking me to set up a tree, set up some lights…they dont know that i think about doing just that every single night. my daughter begs me to just at least set up the lights strings, she doesnt know the kind of complex pain that idea brings. see these are the things that are supposed to be cozy, supposed to be heartwearming, singing the kinds of songs that are inviting and charming. but not entirely to me, it all is alarming.
see they dont know that if i allowed this to take place, then my honor, my disposition would be a disgrace, erase the meaning of taking a side so to speak, leave me feeling feeble and meek, and not to the definition this season implies by festive speech. not to the implicative and traditonal form that i used to preach. back before i was, we were given a breech in the trust, now a questioning of beliefs and integrations of those traditions is a must and back to those harkening heralds make my heart bust.
in my previous belief system, christ was with man and man was with him, gather around together and sing the worshippings and the hymns, circle around and give prayer for those in need and expecting that the “good Lord” will hear the good deed, and we look to the sky and we look to the churches to help our broken hearted get out of the lurches, but its those very same preachers and prayers that are giving the heart up for purchase.
my heart was paid for they say, but they dont say how much i actually paid for my beliefs that day, when i had to put my head to the floor and give everything in my soul to believe and to pray, to let the words whispser out of my mouth, let thy will be the way… oh i did pay… that inglorius play that i had to play a part in starring as my own character, wacthing myself become the worlds worst mother, listening to him say that he will take the other.
so now back to the season of hope and of healing and all that i see are the backs of my eyelids peeling as i try to peel back my pain and judgment of all that i see and hear, when it is the time for me to hold the “lord” near. and i know there are other meanings to this time, but for me it was the only celebration that had brought a semblance of mind and the hopes and trusts of this world and his to combine are now falling as fast as the snowflakes dissapating near the roadside. and now to the glimmering lights of silver and gold i am blind.
but i beg to see. i beg to feel good, feel better, feel all the love that i should from my creator, from the master of love and hope maker. but if i gave into that then i would be a traitor, because it was me that he asked to trade for her, it was me, he asked to keep my life over hers for. so if i go about the world, singing of joy to every boy and girl, then i am forced to remember, that my little girl is an angel forever, he became a demandor, and that is not something that i can choose to be a worshipper of and play my used to be love and master christmas, life decorator,.
We just go on day by day. Well, I mean, you do. You think I do. You see me in the “everday,” so I must be going on too. Moving on. Every one just moves on. So typical. I am in no way judging, it just is what it is….
But today was like it was just yesterday.
To me, it was just yesterday.
How could it not be?
Sometimes I think it gets harder. There are so many expectations of me, and now more.
I just cant even imagine…. could you expect this of yourself?
I have a plan or rather a goal, but I have to reset this goal every day because each day it amounts to a pressure that breaks me down. Again, I have to rebuild.
This just happened yesterday because I have to live it every day. Each day I wake up, and all three of my earthside children wake up, I, remember the one who never woke up…..
It must be when the pain reaches an exceedingly high level that the switch is flipped. That nano second of a moment when it no longer matters.
Done.
Gone.
Vanished.
Or maybe vanquished. I am definitely trying to observe myself and what patterns or processing I am making or taking. One thing I am currently noticing is the level of which I should care is as indifferent as the high level of pain.
My switch has been flipped.
I now find myself in a place where I am repulsed by the thoughts that were once my longing and suffering of what I must have pushed myself into believing was love.
Twice my grieving for my daughter has been halted so abruptly to forcibly grieve another twist of fate.
I have spent many days in a state of seeing my grief sitting in a glass shadow box on display. I can see it from all angles and yet I am unable to grasp it. It cannot become my own to encase within my soul. It is the humanity within me and it sits apart from me, and this, is what causes my roboticism. As long as that organ of existential grief is out of its designed receptacle, I suffer from the flipped switch syndrome.
I, am no longer who I was, and yet also coming back to whomever it was I was intended to be and perhaps had a bit of within me so many years ago.
Before.
It has been less than a year. Almost a year. And it was still just yesterday.
I can still feel every ounce of fear, sadness, pain, anger, loss…… everyday. In that less than a year, almost a year, I have also endured a second loss, which is so much like a death, actually twice. And now, having observed my stance on this very shaky and unstable foundation called life, it is bewildering that I am still standing.
Now that I have become the other side of human, I realise that my humanity, the one in a transparent objectification of process, is not grounded to anything. I think that once I can make a human synapse fire in this metal realm I’m in, I can reach to the case and that instant connection will shatter the box and set free, me. My ability to grieve peacefully will return and I will become whole once again, and disconnected from that switch forever more.
The disappointment that continues to ensue is beginning to be irreparable. The damage is settling in and pulling up a chair, asking what’s for dinner, making a bed. It knows that it is on a hot trail to its own success. Of course, in the process, completely obliterating any semblance in that aspect, of that particular sanity . The crushing weight of what was supposed to be and what should have been has begun to really stomp all over my dreams. It has found a path through what was supposed to be happiness and has temporarily hijacked the entrance and exit. Blocking hope.
This barricade started out with just little wash outs in the road. Tiny little streams of disarray just trickling over the way, causing brief pauses and little moments of panic. The attempt to keep the direction open and secure was loosely bound up by grains of sand, lightly kicked off the side to plug up that little stream just enough so that it didn’t appear to cross back into our mission. So of course, the mission continued. We pass on by that little trickle of doubt and push on through.
With a long enough journey, especially one that makes you climb and climb, it will inevitably be filled with these little streams along the way. It is expected, it is exciting to overcome those little obstacles, strengthening the climber, building a bit firmer center of existence.
After time though, getting further along, kicking pebbles and sand to fill the gaps…just hop over it. There isnt enough time in the journey to completely build all the boundaries needed to walk this way. It just becomes an unwanted, yet expected, so familiar…. and a nuisance to progress, forward progress. Jumping over these ditches on the rise to the top has now become the trail guide’s recommendation for recovery and quickest route to comfortability.
Pressure begins its due process. Pushing through all the little cracks of the poorly built barriers, the trickling evidence of entropy plots its course. The shift in energy is in the air, it is felt by the rumble of the core. The path is no longer a terrain of sure footing and sacredness. The wash out rolls effortlessly over and through the depths of the ditches, drowning all attempts and efforts of past crusades.
The landscaping of life is now flooded by the inability to work efficiently and in unison with the instructions. An entirety of land washed away, where the roots and the water are one, and there is no ground to ground to. The failing, the endless flailing, the fragments and fear, whirl around with the tide that is stirred by the forgetting to dam the doubts. Damn the doubts.
Floating.
Lifelessly floating with the waves of woe.
In the distance, on the horizon of hope where one day I will be able to walk a path again. Hike to the harmonious collision of dreams and reality. Hike to the hellacious chasms of reality and dreams. Along the way while smelling the fresh new blossoms of chance not forgetting to bring the gear needed to build the dam before the journey.
And then there are those times in which you hate everyone who has a baby who survives labor and delivery. It’s this fraction of space and time that occupies or rather seem to invade your lifespan in a blink of existence. Of course you want everyone to survive or transition with ease and as whimsically as possible.
Let’s face it though, it makes me cringe.
Every. Single. Time.
Except for when my best friend had her baby. I anxiously awaited news that her c section went fabulously and that little man was well. Then as soon as I knew all was well, I got remarkably resentful, and not of her (not of baby either). Now it meant that I would forever look at this precious realm of innocence and shroud it with the constant reminders of what we were going to relive again. Our eldest and our youngest… all the firsts our “lasts” were going to share close together… now replaced by all the firsts and all the nevers.
Somehow I have to really compartmentalize all the compartmentalized compartments into even smaller sub compartments to stay sane and claimant on our relationship.
She gracefully understands this process.
This is a gripping effort on ripping away the pain hold that grief grabs on to, desperately.
It is incredibly frustrating to be angry with someone for just being alive. It’s not really even them though. It is the seemingly blatant disregard for my soul that the “creator” would constantly allow these situations to unfurl at my wounded base. Which, by the way, is at such a weakened state that the slightest breeze, even intended to be comforting, is trembling earth all around. It is natures gamble in regard to whether or not the structure will remain standing. The structure itself has no plan, it just waits.
There is rarely a day that goes by that doesn’t hold a note of laughter sounding off behind my every attempt to breathe quiet to my brain. In every essence of “just be” there is the subtle waft that lingers too, with an “on your guard.” In the constant effort exerting from my everything to enjoy anything, there are equally what seems like exorbitant amounts of endless prodding of my personal patience practice.
And along comes another compartment.
The section where I have to put the realization that there will always be more babies. Also, I am able to love and cherish my best friends baby in a way that i may not have before… Perhaps he will need me in the future and the little box of subconscious resentment (which, i don’t actually resent this baby or his mama – in any way, truly) that has been built into my normal will be quashed and I can let babies be born with a warm heart… but until then, I separate my pain from my love, for his little innocence is the only current hope I have to reclaim love for the cycle of life. And soon, I will no longer be able to provide this type of life cycle, which, I’m building a compartment for as well.
I didn’t know it then, but I do now… Archaea’s death was not just hers, nor “mine,” but all the little intricacies and interweavings of what life is made from. The vein of life and death are the same and it all flows together. Every movement is intertwined with realities and possibilities and limits, and like energy, we are exchanging each others movements all the time. Thus creating another opportunity to present more pain, confusion, distortion, for every release, focus and clarity.
Every baby’s birth is my baby’s death and the death of me, our lives, reality….
I wait.
I build compartments.
I long to build one to stand on and let birth, babies, and unicorns be my open platform of personal power!
the Proverbial Phoenix 