Yesterday was a day of feeling. Or rather trying to keep down feelings like someone on board a boat tries to keep lunch down while coursing over the heavy chop. The feelings leak out of course as eventually lunch does when seasickness overtakes. It is inconvenient, messy and leaves you feeling drained. Perhaps that is the true purpose of feelings, to drain you of what is not you until all that is left is your true self. I have one friend who I have known since high school, only just now coming to consciousness after four days post an unscheduled heart bypass surgery. At the same time my cousin’s son, known from birth (now graduated from college) underwent exploratory surgery after over nine month of brutal chemotherapy, to capture that darkened spot on the x-ray, a “nodule in the lung”. Naturally the surgeries bring up all past surgeries, and with it the attendant hopes and fears, grace and presence. I feel these things deeply but then again I try to make light of it to myself, glossing over the emotions that are coursing through my breath and body.
Extending love to the fear of success seems completely beside the point in this moment. Success today means sitting up, breathing on one’s own, an announcement that includes that blessed word, benign. I almost feel ashamed for even spending time thinking about success/ failure and my weird and petulant relationship with both. What difference could it possibly make here in this moment of life and death having a conversation at the door about who goes first?
Love welcomes whatever is present.
The difference it makes is this; in awareness are all things made clear. Because I am now in the self loving habit of extending love to whatever I notice I am teaching myself to notice. I realized that success was already mine because I noticed I felt like I wanted to throw up and weep without ceasing, even as I prayed for all concerned while driving to Costco for the new hypoallergenic dog food the Vet recommended. An unrelenting headache gathered force behind my unshed tears while I extended love to everything and everyone….except myself. When my daughter said wryly without further explanation “Mom, it’s emotional detox” I realized that though I had noticed my feelings I still didn’t really know what to do with them. Should I succumb? Ignore? Let them speak? What could I do that wouldn’t harm others or myself? (This is always the deeper fear of feelings and emotions unleashed isn’t it?) Ultimately I did the only thing I could to express what would not be expressed in any other way. I wrote a poem. It is a poor attempt to give voice to what I felt but could not in anyway affect. The grace of it is that as the words flowed, so did my tears and I was finally relieved of my worry and the attending grief standing by if needed.
“Holy Friend”
In order to feel
I must, in fact, feel.
The emotions that are charged
with guilt and shame
still pass through
leaving me to
honor the pain inflicted
however briefly.
In willingness
to join love
wherever I am
I must first acknowledge
the current landscape
of grief, of hurt, of regret
only then can I truly
receive the gifts
these feelings brought,
for it is their presence
that makes me
run into your arms
again.
