Before I can feel my fear, before I can feel the feelings of myself, I have to feel the feelings about myself. I feel ashamed of how hurt I am. I feel angry that I still feel this way after so very long. I feel afraid I will feel this way forever. I hate that I feel all that I feel, that I don't feel good and fine and well as all sane and happy and productive citizens should. I am afraid of myself, I am infuriated at myself, I am humiliated over myself. And through those feelings about myself lie what I feel. May I someday feel that, too.

Feelings & Noise

I've pulled this up dozens of times. Started to write something. Stopped. Never come back. I feel like I want to say something. I want to say something, and I want it to be heard. But what I'm saying isn't what I'm feeling. Not really. It's noise translated, interpretations of myself I don't know I'm qualified to make.

I feel really fucking sad, and I've felt really fucking sad for a really long time. My body is clogged with old sadness and old pain from wounds I never cleaned. There are times when I spend hours trying to understand the shrapnel embedded inside me. There are times when I will sob so violently and have no idea why other than that I've hurt and lost and never let myself hurt and lose. I don't know what I need to say. I don't know what to express that will convey what I feel, what I feel and not just more noise. But at least I'm starting to feel it.

I don't know if I'm lonely or I want to be alone. Sometimes I ask myself if, like Pygmalion, I could craft an ideal partner to play and cry with me would I and if so would that be what I most want in all the world?

Probably not.

I have a strong desire to be heard, but I'm not entirely sure what to say. I want to feel connected to others, but I spend the majority of my time alone. I want to peek into the hearts of those around me and caress their shame in a familiar embrace, but what would I share of my own? What am I ashamed of? Existing?

Probably.

I have a vision of myself where I enjoy a quiet life of reading writing playing by myself in spare time when I'm not breathing in the existence pain of those around me. But what usually manifests in meatspace is me hiding myself whether or not there's anyone to hide from. Yes yes, the now is a vast improvement from the past, but I'm still alone on yetanotherFridaynight yet I don't know where else I'd rather be or do save skip ahead to the good parts.

I think I'm lonely. And I think being alone feels like the best alternative among a number of problematic choices. And now I don't know if that makes things better or makes them worse.

Raking Leaves

Every autumn, the leaves would change and die and fall until our yard was suffocated by the remains of spring.  I hated raking leaves, with the runny noses and the tedium of catching more in the spindles of my rake than in the pile I created. My father was so much stronger than us, doing our work three times over and vaguely resentful of the imbalance. Eventually, in middle school, we used a wheelbarrow to transfer the piles from the backyard to the street and I could do that and it was helpful and I was fine.

But as a child, after the piles were made, there were times when my father would pick us up and drop us in. We would fall, cushioned, laughing, covering ourselves underneath as if hiding in snowdrifts or under brittle blankets. We would even gently toss the dog in and gleefully wait for him to find his way out from beneath the mound.

There was something of a family in those moments, in the shared work and shared reward. Something of a togetherness and hope I only felt otherwise in the concluding moments after each of my father's rampages when he gathered us up, made halfhearted apologies and vowed "we'll all be better next time."

Father's Day

I called my dad today for Father's Day for the first time since January. It's so wonderful to be able to not talk to him for long periods of time, and then see how much I've changed each iteration.

Today, I noticed our dance, showing parts of ourselves, hinting at pain, but never fully saying "I am hurting" without quickly running away. I only tell him of what I'm doing. He tells me of his deteriorating health, of his job fears, the terror I have heard a thousand times spoken as if it's new today. "Honestly, I feel like I'm living day by day" he says, as if it is a confession to a crime he's forgotten he's plead guilty to all his life. I can feel myself want to reach out to him and touch that painful core in the inverted shape of my own. Yet I stop myself from reaching and having my hand bitten for the thousandth time, knowing from experience how this game will be played.

Even as I can handle present-day him so much easier than ever before, his memory is still terrifying. I was walking today on the greenway, and a train came barreling on the tracks alongside it. It screamed, hurtling towards me with a raucous immensity that carried a familiar inevitability which made me clutch myself as much to hide as to protect myself.

I'm glad it felt like him. I'm glad I can feel it. I'm glad I can get trigged, can feel fear coursing through me, can be overwhelmed and cover myself in the terror I didn't let my child self feel. I can let the feeling wash over me, through me. I can feel it and be hurt by it. And I can survive it.

So Did I

In yoga, our final exercise involves lying on the ground and just being present with our bodies. In the past, I've visualized a greenhouse, sometimes in moonlight. On some nights the plants are withered and dry, on some nights some I picture some weakly flower struggling through, and on some nights I cherish one blossoming.

Last week, there were figures in my greenhouse. I noticed Shame, gray and frenzied. I didn't judge her, didn't assail her, didn't fight her. I noticed her. And when I looked, to my surprise I noticed Joy to the side, softly beaming buoyant yellow light as if she had just been outside of my field of vision the whole time.

This week, Shame was more distinct. She looked like me, cast in gray. Turned in upon herself, tortured brow, back caved in, softly sobbing, hopeless. Then I noticed Love. Graceful, rose colored. Love sat next to Shame, lightly caressing her back. Love did not recoil, Love did not flinch. Love stayed, her face filled with gentle sympathy. Shame's tears did not stop. But she folded onto Love, her head resting on Love's lap as Love cradled her, softly stroking her hair.

And as Shame cried, so did I.
And as Love loved, so did I.

As If There Was Never Any Other Way

I was so close. I was so close. And yet, here I am, flooded with shame yet again.

I spent almost all of last week cajoling, expressing, processing, reflecting upon, accepting my shame. I got tired of it, wanted it gone, saw no reason for it. I affirmed myself, explored where it comes from, looked at myself and accepted myself. And after a week of work, I found myself Sunday feeling anxious but without shame. Feeling that I was not a bad person, that I could connect with others, that I could conceivably be loved.

And then today, I made a misstep which was only significant in my own mind, which was painful but a learning opportunity. And I saw myself have the opportunity to say "We all make mistakes, and I made one, but I learned from it and won't make it again."

But like watching myself in slow motion, I felt the desire to feel ashamed. I so strongly felt the pull towards this mistake meaning that I was a bad person. To believe that everyone around me is better, is good, and I alone am uniquely terrible. I didn't immediately fall into it, which is a kind of progress I guess, for such an attribution is usually so fast as to be automatic. But even though I saw it happening, even though I reached out to others, even though I engaged in positive self-talk and affirmations and reminders that shame is intrapsychic violence, that shame doesn't help me connect to others, that I can learn without it, that it is just not necessary or what I want, it only delayed. And now, again, that harsh metal is inside me, cutting cutting cutting me, telling me I am toxic, I am poison, and that I need to protect everyone from my corruption lest they too be defiled.

I just feel so sad. It was so nice to be without shame. So nice to go a few days without hating myself. Without punishing myself. Without believing the world would be such a better place without me in it. It was nice. And I watched myself succumb to it. As if there was never any other way.