Thankful for feeling (even sadness and pain.)

I was so thankful to be able to share my feelings about my sister in therapy today. I arrived at Katina’s finding it hard to breathe. I was in a similar state today at the oval after throwing the frisbee around with Jasper, I ran into a friend I know with her dog Remy who has done a fair bit of therapy and was able to share the complex feelings around my sis, but with Kat I could just cry and cry and at one point I felt my sister and I living deep inside my gut as two children. The pain over feeling what she is going to soon be going through just seemed so intense.

There is 8 years between us, as my sis was about to turn 8 when I was born (our birthdays are two weeks apart) but never the less I always felt protective of her. For example when Mum decided to sell her piano without permission and the man came to take it away I just stood there with my hands on my hips and told him he couldn’t have it as it did not belong to him (I think I was 6 or 7 at the time.)

My sister was concert level in her piano performance (around that time in 1969 she would have been 15 years old) but when she took some music of Dean Martin to learn to play for my Dad’s birthday the Nuns told her it was the devil’s music and would not let her play it and so she rebelled and said she would not play again. Talk about bloody minded!!! That must have been why Mum decided to sell the piano!

I have felt my dead Mum around me a lot today. This morning was quite cold, only 7 degrees and I put one of her favourite jumpers on this morning while I was crying thinking of my sis going for her bone scan. Its only just over 16 months since she passed and we both lost our older sister in 2014. My sister was hospitalised for depression on the day my older sister was cremated. She didn’t get to grieve then and Mum and I were the ones left to clear out her room at the care home as all other family members left.

I remember it was a huge job for both of us and I ended up breaking therapy with my then therapist as she was very pushy with me when I decided to do that clearing out instead of going to therapy one day (we had only a limited time frame to do it)… She wasn’t being flexible so I pulled the pin which probably was not great and I had another therapist in the meantime before I found Kat in 2015 and I am so glad now that she is my therapist.

Being able to feel my stored emotions and unpack my thoughts is so important and its easier for me in therapy. I have a post backed up about death with speaks of watching a dance performed on Monday night by Samuel Johnson who lost his own sister to cancer in 2017 after a long fight. Samuel is an Australian actor who loved his sister dearly and was heavily involved in fund raising for her around the years leading up to her death. On Monday night he danced in memory of Connie but it was difficult to see him battling with all the feelings at the end. I could see that he really needed to just let rip and wail but it was not really the right timing to do so, standing in front of a panel of judges. Compare Amanda Keller was close to tears herself and asked him if the dance had given him completion. Which is something I am not sure you ever get after losing someone you love. My deepest experience is that the relationship just moves to an entirely different level than before and I still communicate with all my past loved ones even ancestors I have never met. I still feel they are a part of me.

For myself I am always glad of the opportunity to feel my emotions. I had this similar discussion with my friend at the oval today about how we feel medication can often work to block them inside. In our culture we rarely allow the fully expression of grief which in some way seems to be frowned upon. Maybe this is starting to change now. The healthiest cultures give full expression to grief, that said there is a time to let go too, but my feeling is it happens more if we can have the emotions (as energy in motion) and free them rather than being told we must not have them or they are problematic for others.

Today I was so grateful to be able to let my emotions out with Kat. At times they feel too big for me but feelings and thoughts about them are not always facts, I guess. And as an air sign I don’t find it easy to feel without judging myself in the process or fearing how that vulnerability will be received by others. Its something I hope in time to be able to over come.