Reading this quote now is healing and cathartic, though the tears are long past. Yesterday marked one year since the official split, which is still impossible to write about in any kind of genuine detail. Vague is still the preferred route in navigating through. I have sat down 365 times to start a true sentence of healing, but somehow the anger would take over, or the grief. The sense of multiple losses was overwhelming and a certain aspect of denial felt really good. Therapy saved me. I'm not crying anymore, not of the same tears anyway, but I cried more tears every waking moment from April 25-around August 25, than I ever cried in my entire life (or ever will). But I still feel awful and guilty and penitent and a certain sense of betrayal. I wonder if the guilt will ever really go away, or if it will latch on, like a little girl holding tightly to the long string of her red balloon at the fair.
I wonder if releasing the guilt/red balloon is important, or if there is more to be learned as the guilt festers. I know it's important to let things go. I know it still hurts because my writing feels stalled. Stagnant. Aesthetically pleasing, when what I'm going for is raw and vulnerable. Writing that will make you cringe. Is it possible to still feel the emotions, to still experience the guilt, and to be able to accurately write about it? I'm not going back to that desperate crying stage that I lived in for 4 months. I've moved beyond the desperate tears to peaceful acceptance. Loving understanding. Unconditional love and gratitude to the good times, but also the really bad times. The gut-wrenching times when the floor is the only comfort and the Psalms have withered and shriveled.
But the tears sure felt amazing. When I read this quote on Pinterest it just clicked. Something in the language resonated, especially the bit about overwhelming grief and unspeakable love. That should be in a hymn somewhere. And probably is.
The grief stage lasted forever and a day. "A time to mourn" became a time to morph. The longing is still there but has changed form. The original longing was for a return to the same, a resistance to change. To move back to the city, even to the same neighborhood. The longing to live with a friend and experience the nearness. It felt like that's what would bring the desires back, and we'd realize that future was coming upon us and we should embrace the inevitable forever. Let it wash over.
But you can't embrace something that is turned away from you. Or someone, rather. The saddest part is I would have. I would have devoured him in a sweet embrace, his face turned away, his shoulders square and resistant. His locked jaw and my open mouth, rooting. His demeanor painfully stoic. I still would have longed and yearned. Did long and yearn.
Then over the past 7 months the longing slowly turned into the quest for independence, forging a new path, surprising introductions, and altogether, newness in multiple forms. A new job, a new friend, a new fascination. Fascination which turned into possibility.
That's when the distance became healing. There needed to be a time of a thousand tears. That kind of pain will never truly be experienced again. The racing suicidal thoughts. The clinging on to anyone who would hold. The rampant self-loathing, self-hatred, self-abolishing. The dozens of phone calls. The begging. I would have done anything, and did.
Evolving out of a co-dependent lifestyle, out of toxicity, out of stagnancy, into rawness, into anger, into grief, into sadness, and now, acceptance, understanding, fueled by little and big rebellions alike. The wonder is where the self will finally reside. When the grace will kick in. Gratitude feels abundant. Still judging the self-loathing in others feels like a necessary step backward. Necessary steps forward will come. Time will still pass. Tears of grief no longer fall. A time to rejoice is coming.
No comments:
Post a Comment