Let the hurt out - It cannot be contained When it fills every cell of Your grief soaked being. Let the hurt out - Let it pour from your eyes Let it fill all the cracks And seep from every seam. Let the hurt out - It cannot stay Not here, not now, Not ever again. Let the hurt out.
When I was seven years old, I nearly drowned. I was with my older brother and our teenage babysitter, Delaney. It was summer in Boise, Idaho, and Delaney had taken us to the local river swimming hole to splash around. There were lots of people there, mostly teenagers gathered in small groups, swimming or stretched out on towels in the sun. At some point during the afternoon, my brother walked down into an area of the swimming hole with deep, fast-moving water – not knowing . . . Read my new article on Elephant Journal
For my friend
I know that hole is deep and dark
And this engulfing grief feels like home
But I am reaching for you
I will reach for you
Here where the lightness holds soft and steady
Here where you belong.
If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try. Seth Godin “You’re moving again??” I’ve been asked this question a few times recently by a mix of family, friends, and coworkers. It’s usually asked with a bit … Continue reading
I have an image of us, underwater. I see your face, angry and full of fear. You are sinking. Not drowning, exactly. Just sinking deeper into the dark. I’m rising, floating, weightless. Face turned up to the light. Free.
~
There is no such thing as a clean break. Breaks are messy, jagged, all sharp edges and pain. They aren’t the smooth separation of a dislocation. Not the clean cut of an amputation. They are shredded skin and torn muscle and blood. They leave ugly scars, deep wounds. Memories that never fade.
~
I stared out the window at the cars around us, everyone speeding along on their way to somewhere. Two teenage boys leaned toward each other in the front seats of a scratched up Mazda next to us, talking urgently. Were they fighting? Plotting some devious action? I didn’t know. I wished for a moment that I could read lips, but then decided I didn’t really care. I turned my attention to a shiny black Lexus gliding along ahead of us. No occupants were visible through the darkly tinted windows. A celebrity, maybe? Not an A-lister, but maybe someone a rung or two down. A comic headed to a downtown gig. Or a professional athlete, heading home from a game? No, a hedge fund manager. Still on his phone, working more deals at the end of an 18-hour day, but on his way home to his lingerie model girlfriend. It didn’t really matter. I was still stuck in this car, in this life.
~
The problem with dreaming about your future is that you can’t imagine the feeling, the emotion, that goes along with it. You can see yourself buying that big, beautiful house and imagine sitting in the living room drinking a lovely glass of red wine . . . but you can’t know that you’ll still feel the stress of your work day, the annoyance of your child or spouse, the persistent burden of the garden and the car and all the things that must be cared for and maintained.
~
Love – the real kind, the kind that sees you deeply and truly, the kind that holds you in the dark and lifts you to the light – this love is the invisible thread of calm that connects us even when everything around us is chaos.
You think this thing will never pass – this moment that you are suffering through, this pain that pushed you to the breaking point. But it does. It will. Time does not stand still – not for grief, not for joy. All things move forward. All things end. Today will melt into the past, as every day before it has. Day turns to night turns to day again. Seasons pass, years fall away. This moment will fade, the raw edges and sharp points will blur and soften. If you look back a year, five years, ten, what do you see? Bits and pieces, fragments of the whole.
Let it go. This is only now.
Even in a “normal” year, Thanksgiving can be a challenging time for many people. Not all families gather for feasts and football. Not everyone has a home to go to or people who give them love and acceptance. This year … Continue reading
I thought there would be more time.
Where did it go? The minutes I once spent driving to and from work, to and from school, to and from activities, to and from to and from? How can there be LESS time now?
At the start of all of this (#pandemic) I had a list of all the things I would do while trapped at home. My introvert soul was fully prepared to embrace the situation and make the best of it – with home projects, and crafting, and baking, and writing. So. Much. Writing! I have blog posts and book ideas stacked up five stories tall in my brain. When I try to sleep at night I end up grabbing my phone and fumbling for my glasses to write down one last idea or sentence that is still tumbling around in my head.
And here we are, six months later. SIX MONTHS. I have written no books, completed no house projects. This blog is gathering virtual dust. Life has taken on that surreal dual quality of being at once too fast to manage, and also too slow to bear. There is nowhere to go. There is no relief in sight. Every day is Blursday.
I thought there would be more time.
This was my first time using the Writing Challenge app. It was definitely a challenge! The app spits out different writing prompts on timed intervals. I left the interval at 1 minute, and that turned out to be a little too fast for my slow-moving, over-analyzing brain. Which I guess means it’s a good exercise for me. At any rate, I ended up with a poem – not my usual jam – and I did not manage to include the last two prompts. Maybe I’ll come back and do Round 2 on these prompts and aim for a short story . . .
She Had to Choose
She had to choose
How to win, or how to lose
Life is an amusement park
A roller coaster through the dark
A hall of mirrors sometimes fun
Sometimes not . . . so then you run.
Let go
Run fast and true
Run far, run through
Feet pounding, heart pumping
Arms lifting, legs jumping
Splash down and see
That you can float free
Let go
The river is calm
It pulls you along
A gentle, flowing road
Through the green and the gold
And the dark and the light
No day, no night
Let go
No illusion of control
Let go
Let go
Let go.
After a bit of a hiatus . . . a new prompt! I’ll post my response on Sunday, July 19th This one comes from the Writing Challenge app, which doles out a series of prompts at timed intervals.
Chocolate & Toast 