Ocean : today’s daily journal reflections.

Sadness here

Swelling like an ocean

Floods the banks of daylight

And so often I find myself

Surprised by grief

Beset by feelings of the child

That longed so deeply for intimacy, love and connection

In my mind I think of ways I may be able

To put the fractured pieces of my family back together

To get connected with them. I know it will depend upon me reaching out, trying a way to enter their world and because I live more in the hidden world it is almost as if I leave a part of myself behind. And then the struggle starts in my mind because it is I who really struggled to built a separate existance from our family. And it seems that my mother’s death had changed the nature of our family. I reach out to my sister a lot, especially on Saturdays and three weeks in a row she has not answered my call. Its all fine I can then get on with my day but grief rises up as I see that as the youngest maybe I am still stuck deep in that role with unreconciled longings. I write about it and if it bores readers fair enough. The inner critic imagines them thinking ‘For God’s sake is she STILL going on with all of this, why the hell doesn’t she just let it go?” But I know if I said this to my therapist she would tell me that my feelings and longings are completely natural.

The truth is lately I am feeling more and more ‘at home’ within my own skin. The best part of my day is my morning walk with Jasper through the most beautiful park here in Canberra, today it was lovely as there were more people around, a young guy was sitting under a tree with his back to it reading a book and smoking a cigarette. We passed a young family with three young children, the father was speaking French, we walked through a carpet of lawn strewn with autumn leaves, we then went to a local café and I had a coffee and connected with another couple of dog owners which I love as they are usually (mostly) so friendly and open.

As I write this I am drawn back into the very closed and serious world of my family. Saturdays were always work days as Mum owned clothing stores and from the age of 13 I was expected to work there, it actually was a lot of fun, my Mum owned a groovy shop called The Faded Jean Machine and it was the first business in Canberra to stock Jag Jeans. The Jean styles were all pinned on the wall on boards and you selected what you wanted to try on from cubicle beneath. There was a long counter with an old fashioned bronze cash register. But later work in the shop was often a serious business, I got in trouble for speaking too much in a friendly way to other staff, at one point I wanted to give reduced merchandise away to help others. I didn’t really have a ‘business’ head and ours was a very business oriented family.

Anyway as a lot of you may know who follower my blog I ended up smashed up after being involved in a near death collision with a tree on the way to work one Saturday morning. I was in hospital for over three months in skeletal traction and after accident I could not breathe as my lung collapsed after being pierced by a broken rib. I had major lacerations to both legs that required surgery that had to be held off for 24 hours. That accident coming at the age of 17 really severed things for me. I wont go into all that followed, its a long long story. I lost two front teeth and today after several bridge reconstructions I wear a denture with always hurts me and affects my body. Years later when I got hit by a metal door in the darker days of my later addiction was lucky enough to be referred by my then boss to a cranial chiropractor and he told me my entire neck had been put out of alignment with that accident, when I got hit with the door it knocked me again and some of you may know I also had a repeat of that accident on the first anniversary of my husband leaving me.

I actually wrote a post/letter to my ex husband yesterday but I have not been brave enough to post it. I will do it after I publish this though. I need to get this stuff out. I think the possibility of finally connecting with Scott is bringing up a lot as I met my ex husband on 6 June in 1993 and that anniversary is coming up soon. We parted on the 4 August 2004 and some of the most consciously painful years of my life followed as all my past trauma was then reawakened requiring of me ongoing psychodynamic therapy.

The sadness I felt earlier has passed now as has the urge to reach out to my sis. I was going to ask her over for dinner as I will light an open fire later, I thought that may warm her in the cold place of anxiety she is in right now but maybe she doesn’t need it. I got my answer when the phone said she wasn’t available. I will get on with my day, make some lunch and later on go to the veggie markets. I will find peace today. I am still making my way out of my trauma and it will always be with me. Some of my energy will probably always be drawn back to that Underworld place but the good thing now is that I do not have to live there all of the time.