I can bear it

I am grateful these days that it is possible for me to feel difficult feelings and make a space for them so they don’t consume me entirely, that said though, there are days like today when I face an inner reality that feels so overwhelming and large and un’fix’able that I feel it’s almost impossible for my body to contain it.  This happened after morning of trying to connect with someone who could not engage, then going out to the dog park with Jasper.  I find that a bit triggering at times as it’s at times difficult to connect with others and my abandonment schema and thoughts get triggered, not as much as in the past though.  I had a whole year of giving the park a miss to work through this issue but I know it wont ever fully leave me, I will only become more conscious of it.

We then went to sit down by the lake in the sun where there were couples and families with their dogs.  There was a father on kayak with his son in the water and their little Cavalier puppy that the father was teaching to swim.   The mother was on the shore looking on and they were having such fun.  I was drawn into the scene of happiness and delight and suddenly I just found myself crying as I remembered that never did I have this kind of experience with my Mum and Dad.  We never played together and life was always focused on their wants and needs and as the tears fell I realised they never got to have this experience either, most especially my Mum who was always alone looking on other families from her back step while her mother was away most of the time working.  People were close by to me on the edge of the lake so I just sat and let myself cry and then we left to go home.

At this point I realised that I could continue to nurture these feelings of being all alone but I also realised the truth is that emotionally I AM all alone, I don’t have a loving partner or a family who reach out at all, usually only when they want something.  It breaks my heart that this is the life I have created for myself at 55.   I have been reaching out so much lately trying to connect but I am getting a bit tired of the effort at times, that said I just need to keep doing the best I can any day to take care of my heart, of my house and of my dog.

The truth is that when I can bear my feelings then they have a place inside my body and I can be real and when I do this then the feelings of disconnection recede.  When I feel my feelings in my body rather than seeking intellectual distance I can find myself at home, even if at times that feels lonely and painful to me, I need to acknowledge that too and not allow it to possess me totally and sweep me away.  And then those feelings do pass.

I also realised today that maybe this hole inside of me wont ever be totally fixed, cured or filled.  It will at times be conscious to me and at times it wont be conscious but on some level this wound really is a kind of ‘fate’.  That said I don’t want to be totally fatalistic and passive.  I know I can keep reaching for action, activity, self care, connection and love but I also know at times it wont be coming to me from outside people.  That said WordPress is probably an exception as on here at times I DO find those whose hearts I connect to and perhaps the greater truth is also this : that connection is never a constant, it comes and it goes and is not a static thing.  This is makes life easier for me and wounds me less.  I realised today that how I talk to myself about my feelings makes a lot of difference and that there are times that my feelings just rise up like the tide and bring me home, at those times the barriers in my mind have dissolved and I am just ‘awash’ for a time, until that particular wave recedes again, perhaps leaving me wiser and more deeply connected to truths I had run or hidden from before.