I have had 2 amazing ladies in my life the last 4 years...my counselor in CO and now my counselor here in Tucson. Most recently Renee and I have talked about how I have inadvertently skimmed the surface of the grief process by staying ultra busy. We talked about how I might make a bit more space to 'sit with the uncomfortable feelings'. Well, this last week I got a forced crash course in that! But the very gentle part of that, the detail I can so easily 'forget', is that it is temporary for me. I will soon go back to being able to make my own choices.
This past week I tested positive for Covid and have had to hang out with myself- alone...
The good part of alone in my world is that I get the final say in the how and why. But the events of the last two weeks...my brother's death and his Celebration of Life, Russ being gone 3 very long years and now Covid...yikes! I forget to think globally and just settle into a personal pity party. And a week of only my own company? Words, thoughts and memories spiral in my head...from, oh I wish I hadn't told that story at the 'celebration' to...would Russ think I chose right with the move and this house?
This week allowed me to take time to focus, to embrace things I have been telling myself the last couple of years and apparently not quite believing or accepting. Yes, my life seems confusing as it morphs from the exact point of aloneness to allowing new elements in. It is time to let go of 'hold the course', to embrace the challenge of 'staying with the difficult emotions' until they lose their strength and allow a shift in my soul.
As has become my pattern of late, I wrote a poem...Renee's version of 'sitting with the uncomfortable feelings'. I can no more be born into a different culture than I can choose to live life in fear when I know there is an option.
dreamland
it’s a journey
to i don’t know where
3 years of dreamland
a journey
not quite seeing what’s real
a journey
that has inched forward
a journey
where i know now
i must focus
look around
remember
slowly
gently
i should pick up the pieces
there’s memory in the foreground
combining the past with the present
embracing the delightful
my imagination of dreams
drawing my past and present into my future
my dreamland
my journey