Saturday afternoon sadness

The nights are drawing in here as we head towards the shortest day of the year soon. I drove home late from the markets with Jasper at my feet and started to cry as we passed the park that my Mum’s unit overlooked. Saturday nights when she was alive we would often meet for a meal out somewhere close to Mum’s place, now she is gone it is usually a quiet Saturday night I spend at home with Jasper and tonight to make it extra cosy I will lay and light a fire.

But I just wanted to express the sadness of missing my Mum, I know it goes beyond words, there is such a depth to winter that pierces open the heart. Today has not been an easy day I faced somethings of pain from the past I know I will never be able to change, lost years and opportunities I missed. I did the loving kindness practice with myself and what I learned is that my deepest pain and scars will never stop hurting, those mistakes or missed opportunities are gone now and there is real loss. I can only ease it by being present and fully accepting the pain into my heart, with no defences.

Two days ago it was the 26th anniversary of meeting my ex husband. But the one consolation to me is that over these past 15 years without him I have deepened into my soul life. I am making my way towards a kind of peace with my past. I have all the memories of painful and happy times with my Mum. I think of the lonely but golden days before my Dad died back in the early 1980s a lot of injury had gone down for me but the darkness had not fallem as dramatically as it did sucking me into addiction over the next 8 years following his death and before I found sobriety. I had some very very happy times with my ex husband in early sobriety before the pain of my unfelt past reared its head around 1999, that led to our breakdown of marriage and a very very very dark night of the soul that in many ways I feel I am only just starting to come out of.

A true dark night of the soul is almost impossible to articulate in words. I have tried to do so in early poems and most certainly when I got into a new relationship after 4 years of separation from Jonathan so much of my unrequited pain from childhood of being emotionally neglected and ignored raised up. In the end no one could hold me through that healing but myself and my current therapist. I had several aborted therapy attempts with therapists before finding Kat and she has proved to be the best of the lot, She is always validating, never forces anything, lets my process unravel and helps me to hold through the tussle of my conflicts and bringing to awareness much of the darkness, lostness and confusion that visits me at times. Kat also encourages my independence while allowing me to depend.

I could not ask for more but never the less I am feeling such sorrow for my sister this afternoon. I am glad she is in a place where she can be surrounded by others, I hope she gets comfort from some of the nurses and patients where she is. I just could not call her today. I have a sense that anything I might say to her would not go deep enough and today I stayed fairly self contained as it was so miserable and cold and overcast. I cried a lot on the way home from a late run around the oval with Jasper and the markets. I composed a text to my sister to tell her I love her. I just cannot visit her right now. It feels horrible to say it. I feel I am honouring the depth and truth of what we have both lived through much more by just sending love from afar this time. I pray somewhere deep in her heart and soul she knows and understands and forgives me (not that there is really anything to forgive, even when she was mean I tried to stay connected, even though it cost me dearly at times. )