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.
Wouldn’t you know that the sun came up again, i guess it’s time to smile
Wouldn’t you know, you have many blessings ahead, I guess it’s time to smile
Look at how they gather, I guess it’s time to smile
Look at how they look at you, I guess it’s time to smile
Don’t you know how lovely the day is, I guess it’s time to smile
Don’t forget the love shared with them all, I guess it’s time to smile
Feel the sorrow on your own, gotta keep that smile
Feel the joy of those earth side, gotta keep that smile
Kept inside to only the few that know, all day long I smile
Kept away from the earthside world, all day long I smile
No one here did they know, how could they with the smile
No one should ever have to know, or save face behind the smile
What was taken, I shall take back, no matter how long it takes,
For each day that was stolen, I shall steal them back, no matter if the time is a stow away,
Moments never earthed living, we will live on earth now, honoring the life at all stakes
What was taken, I will give back to you, in cherished moments each day
Yesterday I received an exchange that I never thought I would hear.
I was in a marriage/relationship that was intense and full of love and very unhealthy. Our unmet childhood needs came out in full force, resulting in lack of acknowledgment, anger, and started the cycles of abuse. Mental, emotional, physical abuse… …. start the ptsd journey in my body, …..in our relationship.
After years of hope, some change, and little soul dirty work, we got “better.” or maybe we just put it away because, Love was on the rise, mandated counseling, and who wants to actually work through the “old” pain when you’re trying to “heal?” We can just get over it, right?
Then, THE worst thing in our lives happen. Our daughter dies. Grief, grief, grief…. and triggers. The ultimate triggers. Everything triggers. Endless ptsd. and the need for needs rose up out of the ashes to burn alongside the fire for peace from the pain….. layered ptsd.
My grief, and my ptsd were scoffed at. My pain and fear of everything that was happening in my life was taken in, never chewed, yet regurgitated with agitation that I could not “get over it,” or whatever was being hoped of me. (just months after our loss).
My grief and my ptsd, turned to resentment against me. The inability to process that I have to process, losing my daughter and all that occurred during this time, created a divide that was digging my grave. I had to start saying goodbye to the idea that I was allowed to feel the Ptsd running through my body as my blood. and when you instantly cut off a blood supply, the result is mortem. so, I was no longer living. At least not the way I needed to in order to actually live. Survival mode kicked in. And within a year, our relationship was kicked out, along with my need to be acknowledged in my ptsd, triggers, and grief.
Grief. triggers. ptsd. and it has been all on me. And I think that at some point you begin to believe that you don’t have the right to hope that another will see it, and you begin to do it on your own. And you don’t stop. And then you do a bit of healing, for yourself. You become “independent.” And sometimes independence turns into…..
Living in this last several years in a place where this has been a priority to me. To heal and work through the triggers. work through ptsd and grief.
It also since has looked like – been living in a relationship of a world that has been incredibly similar to the relationship patterns of before, if not WORSE, in fact. So much intense love…. and so much intense pain,……. and abuse, and ….. triggers. Ptsd. Grief. Unacknowledged. Goodness I am so diligently and fiercely loyal …. patterns.
Why? Because I wanted closure. Closure to the window that let my needs fly right out. and I thought that maybe this time that by shutting the window and staying with it, being with it when it got wild, would help it settle down. But the window was shut from the outside and all that outside observer cared to peek into was the bouncing around of “chaos” on the inside while I sat inside alone with the fluttering failure.
And once again, kicked to find the Independence. One that I was already establishing, still trying to heal, and trying to share the healing. It was one that said again, that my ptsd, my grief, would remain unacknowledged and simmer on top of the burnt ashes to send the message to the gods, that my, our, ptsd, triggers, griefs and traumas that are not worked through, are for the sake of “love.”
this message that has silenced me for years, and a message that has silenced the messenger’s ability to hear their own internal message and acknowledgment, created a platform to continue the cycles of abuse, to themselves and to their, our, partners.
I began to think that this indeed was a silent and unacknowledged journey. But I started to understand that maybe those that refuse to see the course, may never, and I understand that I still have to do my healing with our without acknowledgement. I hoped to be ok with that.
But then something profound happened yesterday, in the midst of all of this.
An acknowledgment. YEARS later.
Patterns and pains realized and processed, or in process, later. Tears in the eyes, understanding now the effects of ptsd are real later. An, I’m so sorry I did that to you…….. 3-5 years of me living out this nightmare on replay, later.
And I realized a few things in that moment.
One, that I was grateful for this moment I had once longed for. Two, that I was so sad for this pain that courses through this man’s being, knowing how hard it is to carry the burden of ptsd. Three, I also felt very stoic. Like I had no emotional reaction at all.
But I felt so proud of manhood at that moment. It was more relieving to me to know that there is maybe some actual hope. Maybe there is an opportunity for more people to learn how to validate, allow healing as strength.
Because as I see it, no we do not have to heal the other person. No that is not our job at all. We can go on life thinking that the person who is open about their issues has issues, and get mad at them for it, only enabling and maintaining a victim mentality. OR..
We can all take a moment to see that not talking about the wounds, makes resentment. The peace in the in between silence is a peace from a graveyard. A cemetery of hopes and dreams. But those hopes and dreams will remain covered until you can unearth the deaths you have hidden within your own tomb, and bury them with blessings and love.
I received an acknowledgment. Finally.
from someone that I once desperately needed it from. From someone that it took years of pain and realization and a loss of all that was precious to him to see.
PTSD is real. Grief is real. It does NOT go away….on it’s own, it sits “silently” while we “live” on in glory. It invites itself to your table and never leaves. Until, an invitation of nonjudgmental exploration with love and empathy is offered and validated through openness and diligence, the pain will always come back and they will always see it as “chaos” served.
I Love deeply. But I am fiercely independent. My dependency lies within the idea that we all feel the same, or should want to feel level and loved.
And while I did receive an apology, and it was real, it was more empowering than I had expected it to be. I only hope that it empowers women and men to sit with themselves, and meet vulnerability now, not 5 years too late.
Blessed be on your journey to healing, loves. We ALL need acknowledgment and validation. Find love in what love actually means. Begin to heal traumas, together, because we indeed, are not alone in this.
My heart pounding, bags at the chair, I’m ready to leave… for the minute?, hour?, day?? I don’t know, but I feel my heart ready to explode. I say I’m leaving, just ok. We embrace, my heart is pounding, surely you’ll feel it and say something. Nothing is said. My hearts beats faster. Time to pull away, you still embrace, say nothing. I grab my bags, unlock the door, silence is walking out with me. I say I love you, you say I love you back, nothing more.
You walk by me and your phone is in your hand, head down. You walk by me and head away. I am left to sit or follow. You walk by and smile. Head down, phone out, up to closing of door. I am left to sit or follow. You walk by me and your hand reaches out to graze me, your gaze head down phone out.
I had a dream this morning. I shared and cried about it this morning. I had a dream where I was crying and mourning and I shared about that this morning. I am in mourning this morning.
Christmas I say is sad, I found an ornament. I say it is sad that I haven’t bought new ornaments in a long long time, the newest one I found yesterday. It was sad to find the ornament, the newest ornament, it’s wreath of Heaven Baby, ornament. This is why I don’t like to decorate, find new ornaments, it’s just sad.
It’s a sad ornament filled, I’m in mourning and your head is more often lately in your phone, I am having anxiety, you’re probably going to give me grief over this act of grief and lack of acknowledgment, and the day is going to be your family decorating with ornaments, will I might get accused of abandoning you all while I’m expected to sit extremely uncomfortably, and I got a lot going on and things I should be doing other than being made to feel like a what’s your problem and probably won’t check in on me, kind of morning.
I’ll go grocery shopping instead.
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.
And as I tried to wane this morning, the feeling came over me again. I could feel it in my bones, in my veins, in my muscles, in my brains..
I wept silently while his arms were wrapped around me. He didn’t notice. Just like no one else would know. Not unless i said something. Not unless I spoke, but who would care. I could hope.
My tears dropped off my cheeks like the shuddering of my body. I again, wept silently. I again was held, alone.
And what words do I say? As we’re laying there in the space of death and the space of life. And again, it shudders through my veins. Through my muscles, through my body.
I could feel the moment of the death. Not knowing then how I knew it would feel now. I could feel the memory of our dna coursing through me. I didn’t know then it would be the end , but I know now.
I didn’t want to share the thoughts. Didn’t want to impede my depression on you or any argument of why I feel the way I feel. I didn’t want to have to feel what you don’t feel, you’ll never feel. I didn’t want to be disappointed that you don’t feel.
This is the face of love. Each time my heart is touched by love it is etched in my soul. It creates a path of proof through the smile’s lines of love’s joy and laughter. Then wanders through the brow’s furrow of love’s wonder. It penetrates the pores pouring from love’s pain. Love looks like this.
This is the face of desperation. Pleading for the pain to process and bring peace. Begging for release from the bindings and shackles of shame from continually feeling this way. Bargaining no more, but blinded by defeat. Desperation looks like this.
This is the face of hope. Recognizing that this is a moment of an awareness of raw experience and reality. Lit up briefly by the reflections of the tears sweet brilliance of beaded reckoning. Relinquishing the idea that I have to keep it festered and vested in the cavity my soul reveals as wounded. Hope looks like this.
This is the face of disgust. Putting too much sacred deliverance into a space already self filled. Giving with relentless effort to offer more just to prove worth to the takers who’ve passed on praise. Inflicting a self imposition and acknowledgement of misalignment. Self, not self. Disgust looks like this.
This is the face of bewilderment. Standing in a cleansed body state of muddled mind. Perceptions shifting and breathing brings only moments of mild mannered transitions. In disbelief with feeling of washed over and sharing poses more as imposition, overlooked and taken for granted. Bewilderment looks like this.
This is the face of strength. Grimace and regrouping, bawling and growing. Perseverance begins to permeate after repeated experience. Going in as a dove, coming out scorched dark, now a raven, yet continually still it flies. Rising to the challenge baffling the deliverer of discourse. Strength looks like this.
This is the face of grief. The sudden onset of not understanding that operations continue. Disbelief of lack of attentive heart compassing language and cognition. Wayside, left in wonder. Sad overcame by weight weighed by a judge of less caliber. Cast aside and left alone in the debris of dismantling. Grief looks like this.
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.
the Proverbial Phoenix 