This Started One Million Years Ago But Still Goes On Today

I got pregnant a year ago this week. It feels like a million years ago. I was pregnant a millennial ago. One million years ago this young girl became pregnant. A little life formed inside of her and grew. As it grew so did her love. Then just as quickly as this little life came, it went. But the love did not stop. It continued to grow. It still grows in all the places in her body where a child should have been, should be, could be, but isn't. This started one million years ago but still goes on today.

Feeling is exhausting. I do not judge people for all the ways they have created to escape feeling. People escape with food, entertainment, drugs, alcohol, music, sleep. These things can either take us into feeling and through it or they can numb us from it. I find myself wanting to run from feeling. Coming home and turning on Netflix and staring at the screen. I am not always sure what I am even watching. I am everywhere but here with my feelings. I do some proactive things, like my support group, heart to heart with Penny's group, therapy some times. Sometimes I call friends or I journal. Every now and then I blog ;) But still I find myself resisting. The feeling that prevails  mostly these days is sadness. I wear a blanket of sadness at all times. Can't the world just see how sad I am? How incredibly heartbroken I am? I feel like it is obvious until someone asks me how I am doing. Oh- they can't tell? How am I? I am dripping with sadness. Like a wet blanket thrown over me. I am heavy with it. 

It is hard to not be overwhelmed with expectations. My own expectations. "I should be... " this or that. I remind myself to breathe. How do I merge who I want to be with who I am while taking into account who I have been? Other people expect things from me. Work expects me to be invested. Friends expect me to call. Some people expect me to give more of me than I am willing to or ready to. Sorry I can't get out of bed right now, I am exhausted from spending all day picking up the pieces of my broken heart. That is what I do all day. Pain management. Life management. Piece by Piece. Yea, I can't go out dancing. Not any night this week. I have to sit at home and rest, I had another long hard day of heartbreak.

My life might not be what I want it to be but it is what I need it to be right now. I spend a lot of time alone. I walk my dog. I go to Zumba. I find myself wishing I did more, that I were more than a grieving mother. That I were fun again and alive again. I want to be perky. Instead I am wiser. Patient. Calm. I do not speed while driving anymore. Places will still be there when I get there. If I miss something, I missed something. Nothing is a matter of life and death until it actually is a matter of life and death. When you have been faced with an actual matter of life and death it is hard to fill your day with things that simply disguise themselves as important. I am important. And so I am where I need to be right now. I read and I am quiet and I am lonely even when I am not alone. And I take all this in and say this is my life. The one I have created right now so that I can get through right now. The one I need.

Getting Closer

Go on, the voices say, part the veil.

Not with your hands. Hands will only

tangle the hours like a net. Get closer.

So you can part the veil with your breath.

The world keeps moving in on itself. It's

what it does. Cobwebs. Opinions. Moss.

Worries. Dirt. Leaves. History. Go on. Put

them down and get real close. Open your

mouth and inhale all the way to the begin-

ning, which lives within us, not behind us.

Then wait. When something ordinary starts

to glow, life is opening. When the light off

the river paints the roots of an old willow

just as you pass, the world is telling you to

stop running. Forget what it means, just

stop running. When the moon makes you

finger the wet grass, the veil is parting.

When the knot you carry is loosened,

the veil is parting. When you can't help

but say yes to all that is waiting, the veil

is parting.