February
It truly is amazing how our subconscious mind works. I chug along with life and one day I wake up and just feel blue. Not like the blue where you just wake up in a funk, but the blue that kind of takes you over and you cry about everything. (Since I’m not a person who cries a lot, I take notice). I look up and I say what the heck is wrong with me? And then I notice the date and it makes sense. Yes it’s February. February, it used to be such an exciting month, 3 birthdays in my family plus the birthdays of over 20 friends (apparently May and June are big months for making whoopie, probably because no matter where you live it’s too hot to go outside). Anyway, as I was saying, up until 7 years ago, February was a great month. Lots of celebrations, laughter and love. The second month of the year, so if I made resolutions now would be the time where I went back to not having any, the year is well on its way and we are looking forward to a great year ahead.
But that all changed for me and my family 7 years ago. I fight the battle in my head wishing I could skip February, but not wanting to rob my sister and my Dad of their birthday celebrations. I think about how they must feel, knowing they feel the same way I do, and knowing a month that used to be celebration for them is just sad for them too. In my heart, knowing that I am not the only one in my family who at some point early in February wakes up with feelings of dread, sadness, emptiness and loss. This for me is February since my Mom passed away.
Throughout the year I have my good days and my bad moments. A memory could spark and I feel sadness for a little while and then a song comes on that reminds me that she is here and I am okay. February though, is different. I wake up feeling empty and heavy all at the same time, I say to myself “It’s going to be a great day” but that feeling, that truly I could never put into words, never really goes away. A song comes on that reminds me that she is here and I just sob and wish that she truly was. I’m a person who pretty good at hiding my emotions, I refuse to be a victim to anything in life, but this is different. So some days in February, I wake up and I cry before I get out of bed and I wonder how I’m going to get out of the little funk I’m in, and by the end of the day I realize I never did. People say stuff like “What’s wrong with you today?”, “Wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?”, “Bitchy much?”, “Are you going to be like this all day?”
We’re in this time where people are uncomfortable with emotion, where we are constantly hearing “Don’t be a victim” or “You need to get out of that victim mentality” and we start to bottle everything up an refuse to show what we are feeling because we’re worried about how others will treat us. Well here are my two cents on the “victim” subject. I am a HUGE believer in not being a “victim”, BUT does that mean that we aren’t supposed to feel? Or do we at some point need to acknowledge that we are feeling sad, or lonely, or angry and just be with it and feel it. And maybe that means that we are gloomy or cranky for a day, a week or even a month, and maybe it doesn’t mean that anyone needs to fix us.
When someone we care about passes away we hear “It will get easier with time”, “Time heals all wounds”, “I know how you feel”. Here’s some ugly truth for you. It does not get easier with time, my wounds aren’t healed and you have no freakin idea how I feel. We choose our emotions right? We choose how we allow others to make us feel, so I choose this, I choose today to be gloomy and sad and cry my little heart out and I choose NOT to feel guilty for what some people want to call being a “victim”. And truly, as a friend of someone who has lost someone, please know that you can’t fix it and you can’t make it better. That’s not what being a friend is about. Maybe that person needs you to just be there, be with, and not say a word. For some reason as humans we feel this need to fix people and make them feel better so we try to say the right things, that truly just turn out to be the wrong things, simply because we have become so uncomfortable just being in the moment with someone. My very favorite poem is called “The Invitation” by Oriah, one paragraph rings in my head often.
“I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.”
Last year, on the anniversary of my Mother’s death I woke up in a hotel room just crying. I look back on that day often because it was such a terrible day for me. My best friend had no idea how to make me feel better and two things he said still pop in my head and bother me to my bone. First he said “You should be celebrating her life”. To which of course I responded “I celebrated her life last week on her birthday, today I’m morning her loss.” DUH!! Then later he asked me if I was “going to be gloomy all day.” To which of course I shot back “I might be, is that a problem for you?” I was angry with him for a long time because of those two things. I can’t lie, when I think about it I’m still angered. All I needed was him to just sit there and be with me, not finding it necessary to fill the space with words.
So here I sit on February 4th looking forward at what the month holds for me. Tomorrow I will have breakfast with the most important people in my life and celebrate the birthdays of my Sister and my Dad. On February 15th, I will wake up and celebrate the life that my mother’s 61st birthday and a week later on the 22nd I will wake up and mourn her loss. In between I will wake up and I will have my good days and bad days. Memories will undoubtedly pop in my head that I forgot about and I will laugh or cry (or both) at the flip of a switch. I will hear more songs that remind me of my Mom than any other time of the year, I will hear her voice and smell her perfume. I will be reminded that it doesn’t get easier, and maybe it isn’t supposed to. I will be reminded that my reason for being here is to do what would make her proud, and I will. I will create new beginnings this month, a new project, new milestones, wonderful things that make her proud and provide sparks of light and hope for when next February comes around. I will wake up and thank God for my life, my family and the amazing blessings that I have in my life and I will hope for a better day. I will strive to be a better person tomorrow than I was today and I will be reminded that when someone I love is hurting, maybe I don’t have to try to fix it….maybe they just need me to be there.
There are few lessons in this one… I’ll let you find them on your own.
I’ll end today by saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my family and friends this month and by saying I miss you to death my sweet angel.
Blessings….
The Invitation
The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.
It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.
By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,
Behind Blue Eyes
It’s funny, people often say that my best physical feature are my eyes. Beautiful blue eyes, which change with my mood. Often a crystal blue when I’m happy, or a deep blue when I’m serious, dark gray when I’m angry, bright shiny aqua blue when I cry. It’s ironic really that I got these beautiful blue eyes from a very ugly person. It should also be known that these beautiful blue eyes came with a price, I also inherited the legal blindness that came with them. Yep, without my contacts I am legally blind (My vision is 20/2600, while normal is 20/20), have been since I was four years old. Since I was a child I waited for the day that I completely lost my vision. I used to walk around the house with my eyes closed so I could learn my way, the honest truth is I still do that. The benefit? Well I can walk around in the dark and not bump in to things, that comes in handy for midnight bathroom trips. This is where my topic today begins, with one small lesson. Things aren’t always what they seem….people aren’t always who they seem. We may look at someone and see beauty…while they look at themselves and see something very ugly.
I often say, and think that no one truly knows who I am. This is something that I often struggle with. I have always done a very good job of being the person I thought other people wanted me to be. So here’s the question, whose “fault” is it that no one really knows the true me, is it theirs for not trying or mine for hiding my true self? It’s taken me a long time, but I’m going to take the blame for this one. While it’s not really about shame or blame, it is about acknowledging that I have put myself in this place, and it is up to me to change it if that is what I truly want.
Like many people, I have experienced some really messed up stuff in my life, both self-inflicted and inflicted by others. While I always swore I would never be held down by those experiences, the more I look at myself, the more I see that in a way I have been. See here’s the truth, while I’m not my past, my past did form who I am today. In all honesty, aside from losing my mother, I wouldn’t change anything about my life because it has made me who I am. (I also know that losing my mother has made me who I am, however, that one I would change) But really, all the other terrible stuff, a really messed up childhood, a really messed up relationship, a miscarriage, doing some really really stupid things, I wouldn’t change them. I learned from those things, those experiences completely molded the person that I am. Part of that, was making me “hard” as people like to say, some say strong, others say… well it doesn’t really matter. The truth is, somewhere along the way I lost sight of who I was. I started to hide myself, with clothes, with food, with anger, with my intelligence, with the masks that I have chosen to wear, and while I like to say that no one knows me, maybe I don’t know myself. I think we all wear masks on some level, whether it be because we’re afraid of being judged, afraid of being vulnerable, afraid of being hurt…I think all of those things pertain to me, but I’m also aware all of those statements begin with fear.
So here’s my project. Going to school is a great vehicle to begin looking inside of myself and really learning who I am. In the spirit of sharing with people who I am, I’m going to begin sharing those insights with you. My friends, my aquaintances, strangers, whoever decides to take the time to read this. I’m going to put it all out there, understanding the risk of being judged and being vulnerable, and further understanding that if someone chooses to judge me that’s on them. While I feel like this project is part of my journey, I also feel like some of the experiences I have had in life may be similar to other peoples’ experiences, which means maybe in some way my experiences can help someone.
Rather than write a book tonight, I’m going to wrap up by saying this. You may look at someone and see their beautiful eyes or their warm smile, or hear their hearty laugh, are you willing to look behind what you see and hear and see the person for what they really are? Their pain, and their anger, and their demons and most importantly, are you able to love them through it. In fact, as humans, isn’t that all we’re looking for? Unconditional love.
Blessings
HH
The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day.
And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like
the company you keep in the empty moments.
Follow Me