Today I stand feet firmly planted in 2021. I’ve been up and mostly in my body not just my traumatized head or past this morning. I woke slowly after allowing myself more rest. I made a lovely breakfast and got outside into the sun. I took off my top and let my skin absorb the Sun’s energy. It’s been so bleak and icy and wet here for days the sun was such a welcome visitor and that is gratitude note number one today. Winter cold can make my being contract and I love to see and feel the Sun.
After pottering in the garden doing some sweeping and trimming I came to Manuka to get a coffee. It’s partly deserted but not completely, others are out and about in lock down. I am just sitting in my car close to The Lawns section where Mum had her shops during the 70s and 80s. There are cafes there now and the site of her first shop is now an eyeware place but I am conscious time has moved on and I am at peace with Mum gone now.
Secondly I AM ALIVE I DIDNT DIE IN EARLY SEPTEMBER 1979 WHEN I CRASHED that impact lived on in and its anniversary is soon, so the spring uprush always in some ways reminds me of what was taken or shut down for me. A deep silence followed the crash along with the other detonations and explosions that tore our family apart. I connect to each branch of my family when I can apart from my older brother’s kids. Due to their Mum’s issues with my Mum and the way that distance affected our family they stay apart in their own world, like my Dad did with his siblings, but I send them love.
Gratitude number 3 despite all of my issues I am relatively sane today. I can love, I can reach out, I can take the risk to express my true Self, but most of all I know what hurt and how the impact of all of that trauma hurt my ability to relate to others but also how impossible it really was for them to fully understand. So often I was judged or I took myself away in painful reaction to lack of understanding and that created a lot more pain.. At all times I was just trying to live as myself.. Some people stayed as close as they could and in the past 10 years of moving back to my home town I have been able to revisit some of these relationships to gain a deeper understanding.
Gratitude number 4 : my blogging community. Word Press has given me friends, soul mates, compatriots, affirmation of my path and those are blessings beyond words. When I think of the pain I was in when I first stated this blog in December 2013 on the back of a poem another blogger posted on her site for me and how that act of generosity and encouragement from her (thanks so much Ursula of An Upturned Soul) helped me express grief in the following months when my older sister died. Writing has it also helped me to navigate the minefield of emerging out of emotional neglect and narcissistic wounding while I struggled to find a helpful therapist. It also supported me during my cancer journey in early 2016. Followers came and went and new ones connect, but the soul sisters and brothers that I have here well those connections really warm my heart and nourish my soul the most.
I am sure there is more gratitude to add to this list but its time to get my groceries. I hope today you also find moments of and reasons to be grateful and if you aren’t there yet I get it. God knows life is never easy and for some of us it nearly kills us. For many of us it seems to break us but only to break us open wider to embrace the complex mystery of life.. This, I believe, exists in both dark and light aspects as well as our ongoing journey reveals depths and shades and tones as well as the various permutations oexpressing through many subtle manifold nuances of grey.
Emerging From The Dark Night 