impossibility... part 2

It's a lesson in attachment, aversion, resistance. I don't have the answers. I guess there aren't any answers to those things. Only acknowledgement that they are there, that they are happening. That moment of acknowledgement is a release, an instant of awareness.

And then... what?

Imagine what it might be like to NOT be attached to... your mom, your dead mom, the fact that your mama is gone. Does it mean you don't care? Does it mean you didn't care?

I know this isn't how it works. But that's kind of how it feels.

Why? Because I don't let myself feel it. Feeling it is the answer. The truth is, you don't fall into an abyss of sadness. You feel it, and then it goes away for a while. It comes and goes just like everything else -- unless, that is, you don't acknowledge it. Then it persists.

So, what do I do? Get up everyday and make myself feel sad? Feel angry? Feel something?

Guess I'll try that for a while.

Impossible

Dear Mama,

I lost Benny on Tuesday. I mean, he tunneled out of Enrique's yard and... was gone.

I got a text: "Benny escaped. Looking for him now."

He was out in the world, having his adventure for at least two hours. Two whole hours. My world closed in on the few blocks around Enrique's house. There was only that moment, and the IMPOSSIBILITY of Benny being gone.

Just

Like

That

No Benny?

Impossible. Because -- I don't lose Benny. I take care of Benny. This isn't how the story goes. I don't know how the story goes, but for sure, it does NOT include me losing Benny.

This was almost more impossible than losing you. You were sick for so long. You got worse. You were so very sick. I worried you might be dying. Then I knew you had to be dying. Then you were dying. Then... you were gone. There was a sequence. I could at least sort of process that it was happening. Then it happened and I'm left with the ... impossible. You do not exist. Anymore.

I left the house to go to a meeting and got a text an hour later that Benny was gone.

Is that how it happens? Just like that? No process. Just... gone.

So, what I realize is just how close to the edge I am... all the time. We found Benny. But it could have been something else. It could have been any number of random things. I cling to what I think I know, the security of the routine, what I can count on... because every day I am already living with the impossible -- that you are no longer here.

Impossible. How is that possible?

And yet... here we are. Here I am. This is what is real. And it is no more impossible than any of the things I take for granted every day.

And now I know just how much I fear falling into the abyss of the sadness I do not acknowledge-- and how hard I fight to keep it at bay. I persist. I make it through each day. I go to work. I work. I do things. I do not sit and stare into space. In fact, I do not sit still much at all.

That would be impossible.

New Year's Day

I've held myself together for the past 4 months by NOT thinking about Mom's death. This is really no way to go through life. But, is has enabled me to function, minimally... to get through each day, one day at a time.

Christmas in Costa Rica helped me open up to the pain. Now, as I've said, the flood gates are open. So, maybe I won't be a zombie any more... but I think I'm going to cry a lot. I have been.

And this is better, I think.