Flooding feelings. Overwhelming me when I’m alone and working…thoughts to certainly not to waste even a second…to make as many memories as possible with my dear one(s) while I am here. Growing up, we will never get the time back…my parents…and the whole time – in every moment – I am vividly aware of this inevitability of separation. I see what it does. And it scares me.
Some people have asked me why I live this way…why I see the completion of things in a single moment…that I know that things will end…that ‘it’s depressing’ to feel in every moment that this could be your last…and I admit it is not always a basket of kittens.
But in being pure me, I have learned to make a million to the nth power markers of time well spent…memories to carry me through no matter what…and I have taken so many breaks from it…to hide in the secret quiet of my mind…away from the fact that I have so many mistakes to remind me of what is done…that I have so many more to forgive in myself and others.
To do banal things to forget the seriousness of this. Amidst it all, I am feeling what a baby bird must feel when it knows it was meant to fly. To stand up and cling to the certainty that these wings will work – does a bird even think? – when I fall and feel gravity pulling me down into the rabbit hole of do or die. Always there…always has been.
An imminent and palpable sense to get out of this cave and start showing and keep showing what I have learned. By showing up and keep showing up and showing how flipping wicked it is to be free from the bonds of the doubt and the sea and agony that still seeks to swallow me whole, like those million dragon haters that seek to swallow your soul.
To load up on as many experiences and the sound of laughter as possible. We’re still coming up for air…it’s time to act and there’s no time to spare!
Part 2
Things could go differently. A multiverse of possible ways to act. Or not to act; sometimes it paralyzes me but I do my best to smile. But it was clear that the smile I clung to was hiding a transparent doubt which was coaxed into staying by a demon of fear. Fear of being alone. So when those lonely arms needed me, I held on with pure love and never let go. Kept and keep meditating and training; it’s okay not to smile. In fact, don’t smile when you don’t feel like smiling, because being disingenuous trains you to be disingenuous, genius. And unlearning bad basics is a waste of good time.
Gratitude reminded me that things could have been worse; I could have given into the thought that ‘no one shows and no one cares’, but you reminded me that such thoughts are ridiculous, every time you smiled and every time I held you.
In every situation that was ‘too hard’ and ‘too much’, your smile reminded me that there is no such thing; that is was simply a matter of choosing better next time – or just differently (even the tiniest movement sets a different intention and it might just be the best one, who knows?) – this time, every time, my dear one. No breaks from being good to self while seeing more than yourself. And who needs breaks anyway?
Even when the truth crushed me, like ever-creeping walls, closing in like some Indiana Jones scenario, and me without my party, and an invisible quiver I couldn’t even see, of arrows with fire that had burned out long ago, and my only shield was my ability to be scarier than the fears I faced; it kept me in place…the thought that I was at least still here to question them; ‘how could you have…?!’ ‘How could I have!?!’…wait…what?!
The Self in my head rose up to declare with ferocious compassion:
Woman?! What are you doing?! You’re better than this!! You might think that you did not create this situation, but you are TOTALLY responsible for it now. Take care of what you created and can still now create!!!
Else these persistent and annoying walls of self pity might crush us both.
I used fear of letting you down to force me to get over myself. I used the love that I felt make every moment I knew I had totally failed feel like a moment when I saw that I had totally failed to forgot to remember that a failure acknowledged is a failure no more.
Are you going to repeat the same story? Or are you going to write a new one? And which way shall the story go, you weak shielded, invisible doused arrow wannabe, real life Dungeon Mother? Master? Nope. Not yet. Never will be, because mastery means being the beginner again in every moment.
I thought at times I couldn’t handle it. Not me. Not all alone. To not fall apart in this fear in this is like asking water to be not wet…what if I can’t summon the courage to feel the courage you deserve to feel!
But had I not had the courage, and the love in my heart, I might not have forgiven myself for not remembering this moment, right now, and if I had forgotten, we might not be as close as we are. Still, as you grow and remind me that you’ll be leaving soon, and that you’re so excited to see what you can do, I remember myself when I was your age, and get drowned by a sadness that I didn’t do enough. That I showed you only a fragment of this small Island world, because this empire of love comes from a small island girl.
I remember being your age, so different than you, but so alike in ways you defy because you know that we are not in the same league! And maybe your defiance comes from the fact that you can see that I can see that it doesn’t matter if we can see that we’re different, cause it’s okay that makes us underestimate the ones we love the most, which makes them think, wait now, am I doing enough to merit not being underestimated.
You learned what not to fear feels like, when you were learning to learn…playing in the sand, seeing the way sand can stay in magnificent castles when it gets just wet enough, seeing the way water feels on your toes, and how happy we both were when you walked for the first time. The happiness you gave me when I gave it to you, just by seeing the other one, arms out stretched my dear! My dear little angel…walking towards me like he owned the world, with the most genuine smile and the purest of souls.
And then little by little, your mind got so strong, and it’s laughable now that you haven’t already won. But I always remind you to stay humble in defeat, because humility is gratitude and gratitude is sweet.
The world is not scary! I thought that again and again like a prayer when I was little…I couldn’t wait to get out there and just show up and see, how much the people would absolutely love me! And my attitude alone got me lots of attention…all kinds of attention, and it surprised my how much bad there was, and it surprised me more how much it faded me.
And all of the things that I lived with in life; the untold stories of love hating strife. The fading of dreams, and the loss of goals other than sheer will to survive…cause a poor me existence is a bankrupt nightmare. I felt my dreams slipping away – my certainty that I would be on a stage, performing a song or dance or a play – entertaining and being with a ton of happy folk, all beaming one love in this multiversal joke.
I learned so much, about not me and you, and you forget yourself sometimes when you love in this way.
I added a few books to the anthology of me, but a lot of it’s just too painful to read. Some of it I’m going to rewrite the end, tear out pages and pages of untold pretend. New ending, no pretending, but defending my allegiance, to the thing that built this strength seeking sequence. And I do, very slowly, to give thanks to myself, for having courage to add only good books to this shelf, and pages and pages of new things to come, experience points to the overall sum.
You are growing every day, and showing me how to see the best possible way, to continue to remember that you gave me the strength to love every day.
You taught me how to love even when things were bleak, you taught me I wasn’t perfect, but I could teach you how to be not perfect. And still be sure that no matter what, you already are.
I would fight a million dragons when I trained in the grass…in those moments where I couldn’t pull my head out of my ass, in which I could escape into the valley of my mind, where no one could tell me that I wasn’t fine; better than fine: A gold mine of fine! Fine teachings I have learned…By design, we are every one meant to show what love of life looks like.
I get scared, but like a changeling of time, my fear pushes me to grow into a whole new level of belief. And back in the day, when you had fallen safely asleep, I trained breath and stillness, while you deep dreamed about lovely things in the night, and I cried by candlelight, grateful for you, but also wished for strong arms to hold me and make everything right.
My conviction took over every time in the dark. My love for this being that was there from the start…before I even knew you were coming into form, before either one of us had even been born.
I love you my dear one. You can do anything! Always show the world who you are! They will love you as much as I do! Never think otherwise or you will believe otherwise. And even when the haters will hate you will know that they just haven’t seen, that there’s a lot more to life than being selfish and mean…we’re all meant to be seen in the light that we are…to show up to the table, with a candle of able, and a story to share, and a laugh or a dare, to be better than that! Cause we know in our way, that our minds are just tools to keep doubt far away.
Photo Credit
Photo by Mary Rose – All Rights Reserved
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