Letting go
This time, five years ago, an earlier spiral of my life. The she that was me then was hibernating. Hiding out in a fort made of warm sheets, long books, excitable and furry kitten-cats. Hidden from the world at large, with no person for miles except one elder friend (safe, understanding, challenging), the felines, and the cows.
I had lost so much, and only just realised the extent of the hole that had been left. I had thought that talking about the loss, around the loss, before the loss, after the loss, would help to fill the hole. Instead it only smoothed the edges, and eventually - as I must - I tumbled in. I lost my ground, my grounding. Balance was gone. And so I fled. Hid myself away in a cottage in an orchard in a distant part of the country, listening to the rain beating on the tin roof. Sleeping and reading and sleeping again, watching the daffodils bloom underneath the apple trees.
I had lost myself, and did not know where to find her.
Weeks came and went. Floodwaters rose and receded, but closed roads made no difference to me. The cheery yellow walls and brightly coloured bedspread lit my world. But the darkness of the hole was still around me, and I could not climb out.
Finally, a break. The realisation that I could not get myself out. That my strength had been a lie to myself, the story I told to get through the nights. And that by giving up my strength, I would have it given back to me.
And so - one of the easiest things, one of the harded things. I put down my will, left it in the bottom of the hole. Buoyed bv falling tears, I went out onto the wooden deck and saw the high, distant stars through the branches of the orchard. Listened to the crickets and the rustling of the grass and felt the chill wind of early Spring cut through me. Felt the roiling and dreaming of souls across the paddocks, miles away. Saw my smallness. Realised that I was a tiny part of an enormous universe. A part too small to renew itself. But that the universe, in its infiniteness, could do that for me, if I opened the door.
I opened the door. The universe flowed in, steeped with my tears. Overflowed; lifted me high. And so: I stepped out of the hole. Spent the night wrapped in blankets, lying on the hard cool deck, talking to the stars.
Began the healing.
I had lost so much, and only just realised the extent of the hole that had been left. I had thought that talking about the loss, around the loss, before the loss, after the loss, would help to fill the hole. Instead it only smoothed the edges, and eventually - as I must - I tumbled in. I lost my ground, my grounding. Balance was gone. And so I fled. Hid myself away in a cottage in an orchard in a distant part of the country, listening to the rain beating on the tin roof. Sleeping and reading and sleeping again, watching the daffodils bloom underneath the apple trees.
I had lost myself, and did not know where to find her.
Weeks came and went. Floodwaters rose and receded, but closed roads made no difference to me. The cheery yellow walls and brightly coloured bedspread lit my world. But the darkness of the hole was still around me, and I could not climb out.
Finally, a break. The realisation that I could not get myself out. That my strength had been a lie to myself, the story I told to get through the nights. And that by giving up my strength, I would have it given back to me.
And so - one of the easiest things, one of the harded things. I put down my will, left it in the bottom of the hole. Buoyed bv falling tears, I went out onto the wooden deck and saw the high, distant stars through the branches of the orchard. Listened to the crickets and the rustling of the grass and felt the chill wind of early Spring cut through me. Felt the roiling and dreaming of souls across the paddocks, miles away. Saw my smallness. Realised that I was a tiny part of an enormous universe. A part too small to renew itself. But that the universe, in its infiniteness, could do that for me, if I opened the door.
I opened the door. The universe flowed in, steeped with my tears. Overflowed; lifted me high. And so: I stepped out of the hole. Spent the night wrapped in blankets, lying on the hard cool deck, talking to the stars.
Began the healing.