Return – Release – Remember

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Finding My Words

There's a strange difficulty in 'restarting' – in making marks in spaces that have remained so long empty and quiet. Like speaking after prolonged silences....voice cracking and reluctant – unsure and unsteady – as it remembers how to speak.

With unhurried fingertips resting on keys, I close my eyes, reaching inward to gently rouse my words from their lengthy slumber – coaxing letters from their disjointed, solitary sleep – breathing patiently as slowly, they begin to find their way back to one another – organizing themselves into familiar patterns.

This linguistic dance has always had a potent, alchemical effect on me. Writing accesses parts of my brain that might otherwise remain untouched, bypassing the overcrowded places that are rampant with habitual thinking. Though I know it's the very best medicine available to me, I'm too often guided by self-sabotaging impulses that would sooner forget just how crucial it is to my survival.

Today...I'm choosing to remember.

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Overfull

I've been navigating a strange emotional landscape these last few months. I've kept myself forever busy, knowing – on some level – that doing so was a means of willful avoidance. I've intentionally overfilled my plate, covering every inch and then some with obligation, leaving no room for distress.

My days have passed in endless pursuit of 'to-do' lists, moving between tasks in a kind of survival-mode autopilot, careful not to leave gaps; cracks through which my grief might spill.

Beneath the busy-ness, a deep melancholy persists. Heartache whispers from the periphery, tugging at my sleeve like a neglected child, begging for attention.

'Not now' – I say, repeatedly brushing it aside – 'I don't have time for a breakdown.'

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It was only a matter of time.

Last night, after delivering files to a client, I was faced with a greatly reduced list – that string of productive distractions that has helped keep the sadness at bay. Woven through the relief at having completed so much work was a thread of panic.

A familiar tugging came at my sleeve. This time, I had no good excuse; yet I still wasn't ready.

The wisest part of me knew what I should do. Still, I ignored the faint suggestion that, perhaps...it was time to sit with my anguish – to face it with compassion and allow it to tell its story – to work itself out through writing.

Instead, I watched several episodes of 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and laughed heartily. I laughed...and then I cried. I suppose I needed that to unpin my stubborn evasion.

Laughter and tears spring from the same source; I should've known I was opening the floodgates.

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Inevitable Deluge

I cried myself to sleep. I haven't done that in a really long time.

I let go my defenses, allowing despair to grip me, finally – acknowledging its depth and texture – listening, without interjecting...without trying to guide nor define it.

There was no specificity to my weeping, simply a long-overdue expression of all that I've been deflecting – an accumulation of loneliness, disappointment, exhaustion and pain.

After so many months of forced silence, all it wanted was to be heard and recognized – to be granted permission...simply to BE.

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The Calm After...

I awoke with that subtle headache that often follows a good cry. Rather than immediately leaving the warm embrace of my flannel sheets, I languished for a while, relishing a kind of spaciousness I haven't felt in quite some time.

Today finds me liberated from the assiduous escapism that has so defined my life since September. I feel delicate, but not vulnerable – drained, but not depleted – humble, but not ashamed.

There's a certain buoyancy that comes with letting go, as though the salt from my tears is lifting and carrying me – like I'm floating on rather than drowning in the river of my sorrow.

Think I'll lay back a while and surrender to its current – see where it takes me.

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^{deep bows of gratitude for all you lovely humans who haven't given up on me, even when I've been trying to give up on myself. I so appreciate all of you. xo, zippy}

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