Falling Through A Simple World ...Part Two

Nothing to call my own. Not right now. Not today. Feel too foreign; disconnected from what it is that I know. 

Where have you gone and where have you been? Suddenly a gaping chasm by my side and there is nothingness falling around me. Sometimes a blurred wetness like rain that pours persistently and then as a slow, meandering drift like snowflakes from a leaden greyish blue sky. What to do and where to go. But most pertinently, what should I feel? Right now. Please someone tell me. Guide me. Lead me. Direct me. Take charge. I don't want to have to try. Try. Not anymore. I am tired. 

I don't want to have to choose. Please. Set me free. For christ's sake. Just let me be.

I am feisty. I fight. I am principled. I have integrity. Yes. It is true. But I am so spent. I have nothing left to give. I don't want to have to try. Not anymore. I don't want to have to give it all away. Please come to me. Be here. Take a breath. Remind me that I like you. Days pass. And emptiness fills me. But it is not real. It is a vacuous fill that I feel. 

All my instincts. They mutter and they moan. They are burning. Burning deep. Should I embrace or should I simply ignore? I cannot wait another day. Please. Offer me something that will keep this pain at bay. It is dark and I am so over it all. I just need to stand in your arms. Feet not tiptoeing but letting you come to me. Just relax. Let you come to me. 

But I am here. You are there. I am. Not complete. Not warmed or touched. I burn when I cry but I cannot keep it here. I need release. Set me free. Say my name. Call me out. Test my thoughts. My mind. My funky, funny, wonderful head. 

The heart that you have caught is weakly beating. Trapped and constrained in the tangled net of my former family. Set me free. I cannot bear this. I never thought that I could be here with someone who holds my heart. Put your arms around me and give me that life saving breath. I am so pressured. So constrained.

Conflicted. 

A word that hangs heavy. You cannot see right through these walls but you, yes YOU, you will feel where I am. Right now. Lost and on the verge of drowning. Help me. Give me that first rescue breath. I hope that see you right through what I am saying and what I don't dare let escape... 

Hold me. Say nothing. Give me your strength. I will do my best to be there for you before you ever fall. But for me, right now, this is the most truly abhorrent place to be. 

Please catch me because I am already falling...

                                                           Through a simple world.

Reeling Feelings....

So how do I feel today?  

What should I feel on the day that follows that moment when everything changes all that has come before? When you stand frozen, stock still in time; caught between the past, the present and the future?

Yes. My daughter is pregnant. Just hearing those words silently swirl around my muddled mind as I watch as my fingers lightly touch these keys. Yes. She is pregnant. She has a partner. They may not be living together but they are in a relationship. And there is intent and intentions. 

My pregnant daughter. Excited, effusive, nervous and emotional. She is nineteen years old but is so very, very young. She is still navigating her way through an emotional roller-coaster and her own inner turmoil. And that is before the glimmer of a baby bean. A seed. 

She is catapulted full pelt now; staring towards her future as a mother. And right now she is a mother to be. My child.

So how do I feel today? 

      SAD        

There, I have said it out loud. 

SAD.

A heart that hangs that bit heavier inside me. 

Full of the burdens that are bestowed upon me as a parent. 

This occasion should be spectacular; brimming with the shiny excitement of the bubbling unknown. The precious gift of new life. But I am not there yet. 

There are no bubbles. 

Just flatness.

 And I feel sad 

that I don't feel joy.

      ALONE        

There is no one I know here who can really relate to where I am. 

Right now.

Un-anchored from my core as a parent.

I feel alone.

I also know that my daughter will be feeling alone somehow. 

It doesn't matter that I am here for her. I am.

She will feel that gentle tugging on all that she knows as those fraying threads 

of normality 

snap 

one 

by 

one. 

I don't want her to ever experience how I felt as I gingerly journeyed into motherhood. 

Without my own mother.

She was alive.

She was present somewhere nearby.

But I was alone.

And every day that my growing daughter's presence pulsed within my body I could no longer relate to a mother that would reject their own child.

But I am not my mother.

I will never be her.

I am me.

And, in turn, my daughter is not me.

We have shared a bond that has withstood so much.

Is it unbreakable? 

Time will tell. 

This is her time now. 

But I am still alone.

     EMPTY       

My daughter has now gone. 

She will never ever be the same child again.

No matter what happens next. 

I have lost someone who has been a part of me for so long.

Gone. 

And I feel empty too because I believe that I have given her my all.

All that I can.

All that I ever could.

And in the wake of a broken marriage, I have carried her tirelessly. 

But I am feeling depleted.

Dejected. 

But this is me.

I have been deeper and darker.

I will come back

AND

I won't feel emptiness for long.

I will rise up again and 

I will continue to give.

Give to my child, 

to my grandchild.

AND

to myself.

     ANGER      

Finally.

I have found myself.

My truth.

My core.

I have reached the time for me.

To experience, 

To live,

To breathe,

To laugh,

To love.

To keep my chest up and face the future. 

No matter what comes next.

I have sacrificed so much for so long 

Finally.

I am free.

Free 

to feel

to breathe

to live 

to laugh 

and to 

love.

And I don't want to be pulled back.

I don't want to be held back.

I want to forge forward.

Surging with renewed passions and vitality.

To skip barefoot in the sand

and to dance in the rain.

To sit in the warm pool of sunlight 

That surrounds me.

       EXCITED       

My child is carrying her own.

A little life is in its fluttering infancy.

Unfurling and latching on.

Holding tight.

And when this seeps into my thoughts, 

spreading like warm ink across a blotting pad,

I catch my breath.

It is a miracle.

A mother to be.

It is astounding

Astonishing

Overwhelming.

Like the anticipation of a momentous wave, my stomach lurches. 

I am caught up and carried higher and higher.

Until finally, as I fight to stay at the top of this thought,

the bottom of my rational world falls out

and everything drains away.

And with one last 

crash

every conceivable 

emotion

washes 

over me

I remain afloat.

Inflated.

Buoyant.

This is how I feel. Right here. Right now. Right in the moment....

Crimson Tide

Scar tissue.

You only need to look at my body to know. 

Although wounds heal, time shows the true depth of damage. Penetrating. The physical build up of the residual unrest in my body.

You stare in the mirror and sunken eyes reluctantly return the reflection;  echoing an emptiness. These are not yours. This is not you.  You know that you have fallen so much further than you could have ever even dared to imagine. 

You don’t recognise your own face  anymore. You can’t feel any physical connection with your body. All you can do is sense. You sense the silent sucking of your soul as it seems to slip further away. Your self, once defined, is deflating without dignity.  How can you hang onto something that you can no longer feel? That fails to feel familiar or safe? When people speak of being kidnapped by things that are indeterminable,  is this what it feels like? To have your body, mind and soul hijacked and to be left with one thing; nothing more. Just an achingly raw, deep pain inside, boring into the crumbling calcification of your once strong spine.  You are no longer aware of your breathing, your heart beat or your connection to anything tangible. 

I look again. The eyes evoke emptiness. There is no warmth, glimmer of hope or sadness.

The light has seeped out of them. 

Like thick blood from a tired wound 

I struggle to wrestle with my reflection but all that is returned, is passive. A neutral nothingness that fails to resonate with me.  I am dying. 

Death. The thing that defies so many. Dying. Not in the true physical or spiritual sense. But it is  here. Death. Inching towards me, its full belly dragging along the ground as it snakes its way slowly, soullessly, almost seductively before it somehow secures itself around one of my listless limbs. 

I am in the clutches of death. 

A sense of purpose. Belonging. Direction.
I know this now and the gnawing pain that steals sleep from my mind and warmth from my body has been the early warning that my imminent death is just that.
Imminent.    Impending. Irrepressible.

The only interruption to this monotonous muted muddle is when the blackness rolls in. 

I understand more so than ever what it means to be merely existing. I have lost the connection with the earth. Lost the connection with myself, my body and my senses - I cannot seem to be present. I fight awkwardly against the folds and creases of my conflicting thoughts. Thoughts that dully drag themselves back and forth inside my head as day blurs into night. Blending into the white noise that they have now become. A background dialogue to my existence that could be my preparation for the goodbye as my identity slips soundlessly from my grasp.  

Thundering against the hollowness of my skull the blackness builds. It ricochets from one side to another - echoing and repeating until I am forced to listen. 

A black cleaver that slices through the intricate web of negativity, showing me a different way. A crimson red line that draws me closer to the possible escape. 

The get-out.

I need to. 

But there has been no public shedding to indicate a period of change for me. No signs or subtle signals. Yet, I am fearful of the eyes turning to me. I may be crying out for help but it is so buried, so silenced, so much more than strangled. 

I must remove myself from this coffined pain in which I have become so senselessly cocooned.  

Can anyone really hear me? Can they see what I truly am? A shell of my former self. I just am. The ache is here. I just am. The ache is here. I just am.

I AM.

More than suffocated. I am castrated.

 Now I am left. 

Just left.

Eyes are powerful and when they rest upon me, the burning, crushing sense overcomes me. Perhaps one day I will be seen. Finally uncovered and left bare, naked and raw. 

Naked and raw like a newborn baby thrust into the world with no preparation, no knowledge; forced into the bright lights and artificial world that begin to engulf it. The baby is clutched by those close, clamouring to make that connection and so the smothering and suffocation begins. 

The blackness floods my mind teasing my thoughts. Lucid. Vivid. Brief.

But I am fearful of the crimson red that 

woefully weeps as the 

blackness bleeds through the white noise. 

The crimson tide has an allure; a shine. 

It is mesmerising. 

I begin to feel consciousness as I allow myself to be carried along inside its ebbs and flows. 

I feel protected as the dark red engulfs me, giving me weak warmth and heartless hope. 

I can escape the banality of what I have become. 

No more white noise and empty soul. 

The red and black swirl and dance, whipping up the thoughts that are coming into focus. 

There is nothing left.

I have nothing left.

Nothing.

              Left.              

                                                Just let me 

                                GO

A Lifting of a Layer?

Solitary Solace in Shanghai

T’s Tuesday Talk

2nd June 2015

                                                                                           Be Gentle and Be Here 

I am here on a journey of a lifetime - and you have squeaked into my life somehow just now - so unforeseen, unexpected and unanticipated. And with this ‘squeak,’ has come a renewed flame, passion and sensibility - maybe not even renewed but actually new… I am being candid here and with that I feel exposure and vulnerability. 

It is not something that I show very often.  But, I want you to know that you have encouraged and enthused me and this has led me to write, express, share, tell and laugh and FEEL. No one knows what lies ahead of each of us or what may come as a speed bump, detour or ‘pass GO’ and collect the winnings. I just want to say HI and THANK YOU. I don’t know if you are affecting this planned journey of a lifetime - but…

You ask me things; causing me to live in the moment, to reflect and to consider. I enjoy that. 

You also react differently and show your ‘cut and dried/did I miss it’ side which, for some very odd reason, makes me smile… You can go from ‘here is my emotion, I am feeling it and this is what it is,’ to ‘I emptied the shed and will be putting it in my neighbour’s bin at MIDNIGHT,' (would there be any other time??) in less than a blink of an eye…but I can’t. When I put myself out there-  it sits, lingers and nudges me until I look at it some more. Who is right? Neither. We are who we are but I think that we are seeing, learning and teaching - that has to be a commonality perhaps? There was a sentence here that followed but I backspaced…too many people tell me that I over think. Perhaps I should listen more?

It is late-ish and I have a date with a tour bus tomorrow. My god. I have never done stuff like this solo before. I stayed to eat breakfast on my own in a foreign country, I walked the streets in the pouring rain and fought off hawkers selling me brollies, I have been writing for myself and I have been dreaming for myself. 

This is totally new territory. 

I am and have always been independent, fiercely so, but there is something that is different after a long, long relationship. I have given myself time. Time to be. Time to cry, to hurt, to anger and to reflect and time to heal. Time to rediscover me. I am capable; I am strong and I have skills, ideas, visions and aspirations but there is a BUT and I have not quite fathomed it out just yet. The last time I looked inside here, I was probably 18 and I had all the feistiness, zest and naivety that made me feel alive.

You know what it is? I am starting to feel stuff - life and people stuff and that is so incredibly empowering, exciting and nerve wracking. If I was 18, I would just up sticks and change stuff because I could and I would not have the cautionary curtailment that I feel today. 

OKAY - totally exposed ramblings. More of a Dear Diary entry - shit, I should so have kept one all these years…..

Sometimes I should be this softer side of me.
But it is too hard.

. 

It is like a long look into my eyes; people may really see and feel me. 

Not even my family do that. 

I just wouldn't let them.