another beginning

Day 1

Sunday August 12, 2018

Part of the reason that I haven’t committed myself to writing a blog is the absolute certainty that if I let myself write freely, I will be a wandering mess. The amount of energy it will take to edit what I write so that it resembles something presentable is enough to stop me from even opening my computer. And it has. I think my thoughts should be tight and tidy and fit together lovely and perfect on the page. Even though what I want to write about is messy and most often overwhelming as hell: life. Reading other people’s writing has saved my sanity and physical health time and again. This is also absolutely certain. Except when it comes to sharing my own thoughts and experiences I feel like I’m just being self-indulgent.

I woke up recently and decided: enough of this bullshit.

I’m almost forty and my grandfather moves closer to the end of his life more rapidly each day. This is a grandfather who I call “Dad”. I’ve finally crawled out of bed after ten days of sleeping, not crying, watching TV in bed, and letting my voicemail fill up. The light outside feels harsh but the air is so life-giving it’s like diving into water.

I’ve been stuck. If I’m really honest, I chose to be stuck. But this time just for a little while. I didn’t want to feel the impending loss of someone I love deeply, and so I half-consciously pushed it aside. I opted for short-term oblivion instead. Interestingly enough that was about the time I started feeling physically sick. (I am recovering from an ear infection). (I will also try to keep the side remarks in parenthesis to a minimum).

Today I don’t choose oblivion. This could change tomorrow and that’s okay, because today I choose to be awake.

There is a price to pay for being awake. At its hardest it involves staying put when I’m convinced the pain I’m feeling is eternal and unendurable. Sometimes that knife of emotion is so sharp my body holds its breath to stop from feeling it. I wasn’t even aware I did this until a couple years ago. And I’m a yoga teacher (!). This kind of thing used to make me panic. At times, it still does. The panic is less these days only because I’ve learned that those places of gut wrenching and breath stealing emotion always pass. And with the help of friends and lots of self-care, among other things, the passage doesn’t leave lasting damage. It breaks me open, leaves a space to grow into, to fill with other more lovely things. Pain is a mover and shaker. It’s a motivator. If I allow it, pain can push me to do things differently. Most often this is a very good thing because it brings with it access to a more sustainable kind of happiness. With practice, I’m better able to stay put no matter what’s happening on the outside.

Back to the point.

My grandfather is dying. We’re hoping he will be able to leave the rehab facility where he’s staying now and go back home. Home, or the farm as I’ve grown up calling it, and as everyone in my family call is it, is where he wants do die.

I have not talked about the grief yet, what the actual living part of accepting loss, feels like. There will be other days for that. Right now, I am trying to keep this introduction brief. We will come to know each other, you and I. But for now we are still strangers. There are experiences to share, wounds and their subsequent healing to reveal. All this to remind ourselves we are, in our pain, never alone. To remind myself I am not alone. Honestly? Yes, there is a piece of this blog-writing that is self-indulgent. But how else do we connect with each other than through the sharing of our stories? I’m hoping that all this disclosure will come to benefit someone other than myself. This is to say that “unzip this skin” isn’t just about me. It’s about you too. That’s what I want, anyway.

This is my beginning. There is no big explosion or exciting sonic boom to announce its arrival. It’s just another day. Regular and full of the lack luster details of living. It’s also a day to be grateful for because this recent reemergence from another bout of depression has brought me to a new place. This transformation is my best-case scenario: pain as a vehicle for change. If it’s not the whole point of pain it’s at least what I cling to when I’m in the midst of it.

So confronting this grief, and in depression’s wake, I am making a commitment, to myself and to you, to start writing about it. I’ll start with seven days. I’m going to keep it simple. Committing to a week of writing seems manageable. After that? We’ll see.