Crying on the toilet, begging for Zoloft in my sleep and why I was never going to write here again.

I got up at 1:00am to go sit on the toilet and cry. In the past I would have done this with tequila, because tequila numbed my bladder. (That is not a true story btw, the numbing.)

Combination interstitial cystitis flare up, a belief that I am not seen where it matters most and the arrival of twenty years since saying I do.

Patrick and were married in Maine, twenty years ago. Choosing divorce was not because we hated each other, I tell the kids often that we divorced because we loved each other so much. We knew that we both deserved more. We weren't who we were when we met in 1993. The kids love when I remind them of this. They often tell me that they feel special, that other kids of divorce don't have parents that love each other.

I cried until 4:00am, visiting the toilet to cry deeper. There are some emotional disturbances happening for me now and that is translating into incredible pain and discomfort in my bladder. It makes me sad. It makes me want to lash out. It makes me want to fall into a bottle of tequila, have sex with strangers and eat an entire cake while smoking five cigarettes.

Instead, I sat on the toilet and cried.

In my circle we've been talking about generosity. Towards ourselves and others. It has grabbed me tight and pointed out where my struggles with it are.

When I am hurt, being generous feels impossible.

When I am scared, being generous feels worse.

Sometimes I can find it and even act on it, then if it isn't returned I'm thrown back into the spiral of the stories and the fears.

I kept recycling the thought that I couldn't feel better until someone else did xyz. That feels desperate and hopeless and those emotions breed resentment and anger.

I may be crying on the toilet, but that is mine. Mine to hold. Mine to feel. It is no one's job to make it better. This is how my body is working out its fear of being left, unloved, unseen.

That is mine.

I cannot be generous if I am acting from fear. I cannot be generous if I come from an extreme, that this is the end of something rather than the idea that maybe this is just what it is, a really uncomfortable place to be. 

I cannot be generous if I hold back my love when I am hurt.

I cannot be generous if I don't risk saying over and over, I love you. I see you. I miss you.

I cannot be generous if I can't rise above the child-led, wound-led, addict.

I cannot be generous if I focus on someone else changing, the only change that is mine to hold is that within myself.

Two nights ago I woke up and felt defeated, hopeless. I couldn't extract myself from a dream I had of trying to get someone to believe how sad and in pain I was and give me Zoloft. I took Zoloft once for about 2 months, I know its power. There is a theory that it can help with flare ups with interstitial cystitis. I don't think I need it. What struck my heart so deeply was how this girl in my dream was so desperate for it. So desperate to feel better.

Inside of the work with generosity there has been a whisper that I need to find bravery inside of it. That I need to be inside an act of bravery.

I've been thinking for some time about not writing here.

What happened is back in February, someone who doesn't care for me used words I wrote in my newsletter in a public attack on social media of me. Others gathered in and it became one of the saddest most heart breaking things I have ever seen.

It sent me into some of the deepest, hardest internal work I've ever done.

I am incredibly grateful for the experience. 

It was my first step into generosity when I just wanted to lash out.

Instead I blessed the whole thing, I allowed it in my mind to be someone else's truth/experience/need.

Where once I would have lost myself inside of the pain, I rose. And I rose inside of generosity.

I have however continued to struggle writing here, to you. The many yous.

A fear that it might happen again. A fear that my words can cause pain to others. Fear. 

The same fear that is causing my body to flare up. The same fear that leads to tears on the toilet.

A fear that being seen, being my whole self, showing up in extreme love and compassion which I pray for more than anything, that fear, that I will still not be loved.

And it will all end in pain.

Being brave today looks like sitting on the toilet in pain and not letting my anger win.

Being brave means not destroying this email list or this blog, but instead saying hello, thank you, your being on the other side of these words is part of my heart.

Being brave means saying I love you, I miss you.

Being brave means seeing someone as other, and letting the discomfort of wanting to make things better just be discomfort.

Being brave is owning that what is happening within me is mine. Trusting my body to work through this flare up, trusting in a nap, trusting in taking a little space in my day to care for my tender places.

Being brave is generosity. Today my walking prayer is let generosity come first.

Leaving my marriage wasn't brave, it sucked, but it wasn't brave.

Brave was the moment I stopped waiting for someone to change so I could feel better. It was the moment I chose my joy over the known, the comfortable. It was when I knew we both needed better.

Today that is still my brave. Layered with the fear of the extreme unhappy ending, the pain, the tears on the toilet.

let generosity come first.
let generosity come first.
let generosity come first.

so i may feel the love.
so i may see another's stress and fear as the truth inside the actions.
so i may flow with kindness.
so i may hold space.
so i may heal.
so i may become again, in my exhaustion and in my love.
so i may let generosity be my movement.

i see you. i will be seen.