Still taking it a day at a time (2)

[may22]

Happy New Year!! Mar, Kristin, so good to hear from you both xoxo please keep us updated on your sitches!

So, I'm doing better and better at kicking AP out of my headspace. She still crops up sometimes but without the pain or anxiety that accompanied it before. On New Year's Eve at midnight, H and I took both girls up on the roof where we had a fabulous view of (illegal but absolutely incredible) fireworks going off all across the city. Some were so large and so close it felt like a regular city-sponsored event. As I watched, sitting with my family, wrapped in blankets and cuddling the girls, I just imagined each firework exploding thoughts of AP from my head, blowing each thought into a million glittery bits and falling to the ground. Every time she invaded my headspace (MY headspace!!) I visualized one of the fireworks and popped her out of existence again. It has worked pretty well.

Right now, the best analogy I can make about what residence she is taking in my life is like dog $hit on the sidewalk. Unfortunate and gross. But you can step over it and keep walking. If she tries to follow, I flick the thought and explode it again like a little firework. I told my H, too, that she's like dog $hit on my lawn. He said, we've built a fence, now. The dog can't come take another cr@p on our lawn. Yes, but it's still there. He said, hopefully it will eventually decompose and turn into fertilizer and make the lawn greener. But this takes time.

I wrote a note to Wayfarer asking her advice about when you can know you're ready to drop your guard and think about piecing. I don't know that I'm ready quite yet (part of me is afraid I'll never be ready, that I'm waiting for some magic fantasy scenario that will never happen IRL). For now, I'm trying to stop spending time and energy being angry and upset about what has happened in the past and just accept it for what it is, not what it might or might not mean about what is happening today or what may happen in the future. I think I've still been holding onto some level of anger and resentment like a little security blanket to help shelter me from being vulnerable again, and to use as fuel to power me out if I need it. I think I need to let it go. It feels scary, though.

FlySolo, I read your note to me on your thread about re-reading my threads from a neutral standpoint and thinking about what advice I'd give myself... I will do that. I re-read some of it a few weeks ago and my biggest takeaway was that I've come a long ways, as has he. (maybe even... we've come a long way? I don't know that I'm totally ready to say that yet.) And how to be in the NOW, not in the fear and anger of yesterday, or in the dueling hope and anxiety for what may be in the future? This is my work, I think, today. Thank you for that.

Have you guys seen the movie Soul? It's out on Disney Plus right now, and I really loved it. It underscores the value of mindfulness and gratitude and empathy. I don't think this is a spoiler (but if you're worried skip to the next paragraph), but there is a scene where the main character walks out the front door and the sun is shining on his face and he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and you can FEEL him breathing in the air and feeling the sun on his face and the pure joy and goodness of being alive and optimism about what the day will bring. This is another image I'm keeping with me.

I'll reflect on Wayfinder's thoughts in my next post, and recap a bit for you guys where I am in all of this process. But for now there is one other thing I wanted to share that I've been keeping with me and thinking about since the new year:

Kindness
Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

I had read and held onto this poem a year or so ago, when I was in the hardest spots. I came across it again the other day and thought-- when I first read this poem, the part that spoke to me the most was the description of sorrow-- the future dissolving like salt in a weakened broth, the desolation of the landscape, the bus that never stops. It felt so real.

Now, the part that speaks to me the most is-- I feel very fortunate, somehow, if this is my path. There are many harder ways to learn this lesson. I don't want to lose this opportunity to embrace kindness and compassion as I walk this path. I thought I'd share it because it has meant a lot to me, different things at different times, and maybe it will speak to one of you.

Thank you, friends. I'll write more later.

xoxo May