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Learning and trying to be kind and living my life as fully as I can stand it.

Monday, January 8, 2018

New Year

The day before New Year's Eve, December 30, 2017, I fell deep into a hole. I couldn't stop crying. Crying hasn't been a big part of my life over the past decade or so--I unlearned the habit after years in my youth when any intense emotion would have me bursting into tears. Now the tears are coming back and it still makes me deeply uncomfortable, even as it feels like a relief.

It wasn't a physical hole--it was the emotional hole I'd been circling for months, afraid to get too close exactly because I didn't want to fall in. Even though I knew I needed to fall in. Knew I couldn't avoid it. Knew it would be in my path no matter which route I tried to take.

I felt desperate. With loneliness. With fear. With mental illness. With self-loathing. Just this deep sense of being so goddamn tired of being this person that I still am. The person who thinks too much about everything and can't relax and beats myself up and can't appreciate what I have. The pain was so intense. The fear was so intense. The fear that I would never get out of this sad place, this longing place, this feeling broken place. And even though some far corner of my mind knew that this would only be temporary, that I'd been here before and I would pass through it somehow, I felt trapped in myself and all I wanted to do was get away. Numb. Run. Hide.

There have been things going on in my life, difficult things, that I don't want to write about here. That's one of the reasons it has been hard to show up on this page, hard to find a way to share myself when so much of what I've been doing and thinking about and working on has not been for public consumption. 2017 was a hard and painful year for so many of us, for so many reasons. Me too.

I am working really hard, even as some of that hard work is in learning how to be softer. Softer on myself. More forgiving. More loving of this wild, imperfect woman that I am blessed and sometimes cursed to be. I am getting help from many wise people. I am surrounded by love. I am known. And I know for certain that I am on the right track just as I know for certain that the part of the track I've been travelling has been and will continue to be devastating. There is all this inner work going on and I still have four little kids who need to be loved and driven to school and taken to the doctor. There are still friendships, old and new. There are still people hurting and struggling and working all around me.

In the few weeks leading up to New Year's Eve I kept asking myself how I wanted to celebrate. Ceremony is important to me and it's always mattered to me to mark the passing from one year into the next. It's always been a funny day, often not living up to the hype, easy to end up somewhere you don't really want to be especially if, like me, you're someone who hasn't given much thought to where I truly want to be. I wondered whether I wanted to ring in the new year with my littles or whether it was a better year to go into the city and party, dance all night and let my body feel young and free and fun. I thought about hosting a party but that felt hard. I thought about going to spend the night on a beach somewhere with my journal, to be quiet with myself but that sounded way too hard and scary. The day got closer and no plans were made.

On the 30th I felt achy and drained. I felt sad. The tears started pouring out, my mind got desperate, I went into hermit mode and didn't want to talk to anyone or see anyone. I knew I needed to reach out to someone and I didn't want to. At all. I did not want to pick up the 10,000 pound phone.

I texted with my brother and sister to say "I'm struggling. I am so sad. I don't want to talk but I want you to know." They loved me from afar and told me they were there to talk when I was ready. They tried to reassure me.

I texted my sponsor and said "I'm struggling. I am so sad. I don't want to talk but it feels so hard to even reach out to you to say this much that I knew I needed to do it." She said she was sorry I was struggling, she sent me some slogans and suggested I pick one to focus on. That helped a little.

I cried. I tried to get out of my head. I thought of different ways I could escape myself and chose not to take any of them.

I texted my wise friend Liz and said "Oh friend. I'm in the dark and I feel afraid here. How do I not fight it?"

Liz is writing a book about the Divine Feminine and the Goddess traditions. She is a fierce feminist, a yogi, a mama, a soul sister. She is one of my teachers in this life. She has written before about how we can all be so afraid of the dark but that the darkness is a necessary part of us. Diving Into Darkness

She wrote me "Breathe. You were born in the dark, love. You ARE the dark. She's waiting for you there. Ask Her for help. She will hold you."

Then she wrote "Get your feet on the ground. Bare feet on the dirt. Let the sun hit your face. Breathe. You've got this."

Ok, I wrote. Feet in the dirt. Thank you. And I took myself outside into the backyard and did what she said.

Then she wrote "Lay in the dirt if you need to. Feel Her holding you. You are not alone. Never have been, never will be."

So I lay in the grass and dirt of my backyard and I wept. I closed my eyes and I begged "Help me. I need help. This year is ending, a new one is beginning. I don't know where I'm going. I'm so afraid."

The acuity of the desperation passed shortly after that. I got back in bed and hid there, wrapped in blankets. Kid bedtime happened and I got back in bed. Not long after that I started shaking, my whole body shivering without cease, for thirty minutes. Rigors.

Oh! I thought. There is something really wrong with me. Physiologically wrong with me. And even though I felt shitty, I felt such great relief. Because I know what to do when something needs to be healed in my body. But I get so afraid when I lose control of my mind.

I celebrated New Year's Eve in a hospital bed, alone, after an ambulance ride into the city to take me to my special hospital where they know me and know how to take care of me. I had pylonephritis, a kidney infection. It wasn't a party and it wasn't at all what I pictured when I tried to imagine how to mark the passage of another year but it felt deeply right. That was where I needed to be and it fit as an end to 2017--a year of learning to focus anew on my physical health.

After Liz told me I wasn't alone I wrote her back to say "That helped. I do feel so alone. And so tired of myself and this journey of learning that is so hard."

"You're ready, friend," Liz wrote to me. "You're on the cusp of huge change."
'I imagine it hurts like hell. But you can do it."

We can do it. Happy New Year. I wish you all more of the power of the Divine Feminine in your lives. I wish you good, true friends and helpers when you ask for them. I wish you care for your minds, bodies and spirits. And I wish you tenderness as you journey to wherever it is you need to go.


5 comments:

  1. Thank you for your brave, grounded, honest words.

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    1. Thank you very much for reading and commenting. It means a lot to me.

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  2. We can do it! We ARE doing it... thank you for teaching with your story of vulnerability, strength and courage.
    Love you, sister.
    xo
    Jul

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  3. Just found your blog... thank you for writing your thoughts. I am struggling right now. I feel alone and sad, but I am not. I shouldn't feel that way I have a beautiful family and a wonderful job,good health but I feel alone. I am suspicious that I am struggling with depression and probably have been for a long time but have just thrown on my happy face and carried on. The other day I made a joke and I laughed a real laugh... it felt so weird and SO welcoming AND then I realized I miss feeling happy so this morning on my way to work I thought about that and sobbed... How long have I felt sad? I don't even know. I just know I have started to realize recently that I feel numb and lazy and not "me" anymore. I want to laugh again and feel the joy that comes with laughing... I don't know how to get there. Reading your post has helped me realize the first thing I need to do is reach out.. even though every fiber of my being is resisting that. I don't even know if I have any friends left to reach out to... I have been an awful friend in the last few years... Ugh. Sorry to write a book on your comments. Thank you for writing this blog I am sure it isn't easy, but today.... you helped me. Thank you. I am going to keep reading and then I am going to text a friend who loves me way more than I deserve and say sorry I am lost right now and I don't want you to run to me and help I just want you to know and I am sorry I've been a crappy friend thanks for loving me anyway. I didn't post this with my name because I am fearful - thanks for being brave and real and putting yourself out there... I have a LONG ways to go, but today I took a step.

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    1. I was so honored to read this comment. I'm so sorry you're struggling. Lots of love to you. I hope your people show up for you in the way that you need. Thank you for reading and commenting.

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