Raining Tears

I was excavating into my past worlds, past self.

I found things I had forgotten. Memories. Times faded and only brought forth through the recordings that hold them.

She wrote, five years ago...

FIRST THERE IS THE DREAM. THEN THE FEAR.

DREAMING ABOUT -- WE SEE THE LOVE WE COULD HAVE, THE PLACES OUR FEARS COULD TAKE US.

DOING, FEELING, ACTING -- WE SHOW OURSELVES THE AMOUNT OF LOVE WE CAN HOLD. FOR OURSELVES.

ARE WE ALLOWED TO LOVE OURSELVES THIS MUCH THAT WE UN-BURRY EACH FEAR, UNWRAP THEM LIKE LITTLE PRESENTS?

FEAR OF OWNING OUR BEAUTY.

FEAR OF NOT BEING ABLE TO FEEL LOVE FOR ANOTHER SO DEEPLY THAT WE CAN REALLY LISTEN TO THEM. AND ALLOW THEM TO GROW AND BLOSSOM.

FEAR OF SUCCEEDING, FEAR OF BEING AMAZING. FEAR OF KNOWING JOY IN ITS SIMPLICITY.

FEAR OF BEING TRAPPED AWAY FROM ACTUALLY.

CAN WE LOVE OURSELVES THAT DEEPLY? AND IF SO, WHAT THEN?

THE DREAMS CONTINUE. AND THEY ARE SO MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL.

She was the one who taught me to dream. She was the one who brought me to this place of so much change and light and chaos.

And now I am raining tears. I am radiating energy. 

I am choosing to remember the woman who was so brave, so brave I can barely believe she exists inside of me.

The losses from the past want to creep in and do the talking. But she wants me to see the dreams. Feel the dreams. Retrace them. Play dot-to-dot and connect to the ones that are about to come.

She was the one who taught me to understand joy. To teach it. To find words for it.

.......

I've been trying to go back into my old home, excavate the past from the basement and the attic and the walls and the shelves. So much of me still resides in a life that is no longer mine but holds so much of me.

I have to do the work slowly. I get so overcome by emotion that I feel lost for days, weeks. It is a shedding and remembering and moving through all at once.

It is raining tears that are growing the sprouts of my becoming.

When the dog got sick last week, he lost about 15 pounds in 2 weeks. We got scared. He has become a burden for my ex and quite lost to me as I no longer live with him. My 10 year old says that he and the dog were separated at birth and then found each other again. (The dog is half his age.)

I sat at the vet for hours on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. I waited for blood work. Every time the vet would talk to me I would tear up and my voice would catch with the emotion I was trying to force down into my throat. Into my heart. Into somewhere that could help me hold it.

I felt like I was a part of him again. Of the family I had left, that included the dog and the man I co-parent with. I am at a loss for how to be in relationship with this man now. How do we talk? What do we share? Should we be spending time together with the kids? Who are we to each other now. The sadness and hurt in his eyes when I am with him, push me away because I feel the guilt. Still now. More now. That I left.

.......

I made him turkey and sweet potatoes at the house and fed him and snuggled with him. He made the noise he used to make when he was so happy and in love and sleepy.

He didn't throw up, kept it down. Progress. 

Then back to the vet in the morning. I bring the kids to school so he can bring the dog in. We text about how he is doing. 

Five years ago I would have been crying into his shoulder. Now our communication is a life time of together inside of the few words in texts and brief encounters.

Because I don't know yet who we are. 

She brought me to where I am with no trail of how to move forward. I need to own how much still frightens me about all of this. I need to listen to him more and watch him grow into his new life. I need to ask him how I can be more supportive. I need to ask him who we are becoming. Because I don't know on my own.

.......

There is this intense longing to reconnect with so many from so long ago who were part of the chaos of burning it all down. My world got smaller and smaller as I opened the door of separation. The boundaries and the bubbles around myself tighter and tighter so that I could take one more step into unknown.

I could not hold all the people who I loved. I had to trust that they would understand and let me walk through the messiness of my life, let me crash and burn and ache and fall.

Trust that they would let me have the feelings I had to feel. 

FIRST THERE IS THE DREAM. THEN THE FEAR.

Raining tears. Radiating energy. Calling forth. Cycling from the dreams into the fear and then back again.

I want to walk with my eyes back open. I want to figure out how to do this all differently. I want to not be afraid of saying, "I'm hurting. This isn't working. What can we do differently?"

I want to ask for what I need. I want to snuggle the dog and hear the noise he makes for me.

The intense change I am craving is going to create some crazy-making for a while. The highly sensitive parts of myself are smart enough to know that. The fears will follow.

FEAR OF BEING TRAPPED AWAY FROM ACTUALLY.

CAN WE LOVE OURSELVES THAT DEEPLY? AND IF SO, WHAT THEN?

THE DREAMS CONTINUE. AND THEY ARE SO MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL.