Now that’s a confession.

Because I write about healing and how to do it and all the ways we can “get back on the horse” after unfathomable losses over many years, it is a shocking confession to me.

Today is significant to me not only for this revelation but because I started this blog on March 14, 2023. I have committed to writing a post a day every day for a whole year. This is the half way mark. High marks for stick-to-it-ism.

I have devised a clever strategy. So I will not feel the true depths and agony hiding in the pain abyss I am carrying. I play an artful game of “feint and parry,” “na-na-na-boo-boo” and the biggie, “You can’t hurt me!”

Lately, however, I am edging toward the rim of the abyss. The pain looks up at me slyly from the measureless depths. It chuckles softly. “I’m gonna getcha. You know that, don’t you?” And the minute I hear that whisper of a threat, I rev up in to high gear. “The hell you are!”

My voice raises and thins and speeds up. My fingers fly faster over the keyboard much more driven than they need to be. I realize there is no need for this manic typing. The words will come out eventually no matter how slow or fast I type. But in an attempt to evade the mocking incessant whispers of pain, the typing seems possessed by an Olympian drive.

I cannot even conceptualize what “surrender” or “letting go” means. I imagine it means death. Psychological and literal. I have entertained the conceit that I have actually been letting go in recent years. I realize I have been tested lately. External forces have triggered and exposed what hasn’t fully healed.

Then the dominoes fall. Just like the 100 foot oak trees behind our new house. I am emotionally bereft. I have tried to live above it all. Real losses and the threat of loss have been swimming in and out of my life for decades. “I laugh in the face of fear and danger!! Ha-ha.” Not.

Occasionally I acknowledge pain’s presence, then let it move along. Lately, the hateful thing seems poised to throw itself onto my emotional beach, loll about sunning itself and indicates its intent to stick around for awhile.

They say that the way to conquer the thing you fear and loathe is to get up close to it, make yourself vulnerable and befriend the creature. Talk about easier said than done. What I know today at exactly the halfway point in my daily blog writing exercise, I have never been so awash in pain and uncertainty.

If I were you reading this, what would I tell you by way of hope and comfort? The platitude scarves would come out. “This too shall pass.” “You are stronger than you imagine and braver than you think.” “What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.“ Etc.

That last quote is by Thoreau. It has always struck a resonant chord in me even though it seems to expect an enormous amount of us. It expects we will have sufficient time, wisdom and inclination to fully explore and find that which lives deep inside us. I feel I have never had an adequate amount of any of those three things to find out who and what I really am.

Once in another place of transition in my life, I was lost and confused. My direction in life, how I wanted to live, where I wanted to live. The counsellor I was talking with simply said: “That’s perfectly okay. Confusion is a legitimate place.”

In my mind, I have committed to writing daily about what I observe, what I’ve learned and whatever else came up. To honor that process, I tap into it all – good, bad and ugly. Even the uncomfortable bits. Only time will tell if this confession is a catharsis and sparks another deep healing phase. I have fear and I have hope.

Again it was my old friend Thoreau who said: “Not until we are lost do we discover who we are.”

That being the case, and if Henry is right, I should be on track to solidify a pretty tight sense of self at the end of this waterpark ride.

Here’s hoping.

In the meantime, I’ve got work to do. As I have always done, I will put one metaphorical foot in front of the other. And I’ll keep writing. That is something concrete I can do to contain and examine the pain. Most days, it helps.

ED. NOTE: The Universe often does show up with guidance and comfort. This morning’s message from a spiritual newsletter I read is: The beauty of being lost is the same thing that makes it scary — we must look within ourselves to find the way.

On it. 🙂