Friday, May 9, 2008

S.O.S.

Everything always seems to be about saying goodbye. I know it would be better to focus on the hellos; there are probably just as many of them as goodbyes. But the goodbyes encompass loss, abandonment, heartache.......... somehow, even if it's my own choice, goodbye always seems like rejection.

It's like I just woke up, or - something shifted - and I really felt for the first time that the boys are gone. I couldn't keep them, it would not have been practical (because I work at home. because it's hard to say "no" to them) and it was never intended to be permanent. Oh and I needed a break. I needed the silence, the solitude... but now it feels like, why did they leave me? Because I failed them, I wasn't good enough...
and my cat of eighteen years is gone too. She was fading, dying probably, for a long time, and in a way it was a relief to let her go (though it partly feels like murder); and I have new cat, sweet as toffee and bright and Orange as sunshine --- but where did my baby go? Why did she have to leave me too?

There's so much fear in me, and some anger too. I can hardly breathe. I can't run this vessel alone. And the older I get, the harder it is to try. Yet I can't have companions who cannot give anything back -- I cannot carry the weight of others, not such heaviness as they carry, certainly. I do not even let them visit, do not even talk to them; what can I give that I haven't already?
So where is the give and take of the so called healthy relationships? There's a glimmer, a bit of beginning there. Yes it's gotten better.

I might have to get out in the world again and give up this easy job at home. For my sanity, I think. But I'm afraid; I don't have the confidence to get out there and sell myself on how good I am with people...... people scare me right now, people I don't know, at least (and some that I do). I'm not too motivated now to work though this job has enabled me to have kids here, to do things I want to do, and if I weren't' in so much debt in part due to those boys I would be in pretty good shape.... if I discount the fact that I got a bad review.

I spoke to my mother on Mother's day. She was Nice mom this time. At Christmas she was not the Nice mom; tried to tell me what I should not be doing with my life - that the choices I made were wrong. Wrong because I'd get hurt, yet the hurt she was thinking of was the little hurt, the material part. The big hurt is the loss, the lack of that connection I was so desperately striving towards. And will keep striving towards in some manner or another with someone or other, because I am human.

Oh i have a higher power. That i have no doubt of. And I have had some remarkable connections with it/him/her/them - and sometimes the connection comes through people. I mean, to me, love IS the higher power. When I have it, I can channel it, give it, share it........ I don't suppose I ever really run out but lots of times it's stopped up, clogged up like an ill-used piece of plumbing. I know the source is never dry. I do know this. I know i have been healed of some of the pain of loss, otherwise I would not unclog at all, ever.

I've had some dreams recently about the family. About being ignored, rejected, invisible. My father is in these dreams (not dead), not loving me. My mother is there, ignoring me. They have a party for me, for my birthday, but they don't want me around. There's hardly any food for me. They treat me like I'm a fool, an idiot, a simpleton. This was my reality growing up, this was who I was. If they don't take me seriously, why would anyone else? of course I will be rejected. Over and over again. So I cocoon myself - alone. But. That is harder and hard to do - now I've had a taste of companionship, I've experienced the giving of love, and even some receiving. I have no choice but to go forward and inch along though it seems I'm going against the tide.


"Who formed us thus:
that always, despite
our aspirations, we wave
as though departing?
Like one lingering to look,
from a high final hill,
out over the valley he
intends to leave forever,
we spend our lives saying
goodbye."

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

No comments: